Hello ! el nuevo World Sound salio a la venta en la ciudades francofonas del mundo ! Para ustedes los calicuteros, una traduccion al ingles de uno de mis articulos en este numero 9, una investigacion sobre los lazos entre la nueva pop indie (vampire week end, franz ferdinand, fools gold...) y la musica africana !
It's fresh yet not quite new: avant garde and underground pop culture have their eyes set on Africa and Latin America once again. But between Paul Simon's south african fantasia or the experiments of Talking Heads and Oingo Boingo, and the new releases of bands like Rainbow Arabia or a Franz Ferdinand-meets-Orchestre Poly Rythmo concert, a lot of things have happened and Mandela got out of jail. Globalisation is part of the plot, and one might say America changed since Obama.
It may have happened to you, say, three years ago. You went to a friend's house for a nice party after a couple of months overseas. Your friends, generally speaking, like to consider themselves as "hip". You came with a bottle of wine, great tales and a bunch of those seriously groovy african records from your last trip to Ghana. Or to the flea market, it depends. But after one hour of experimental pop and underground neo folk, as you try to play that nice Stephen Osadebe tune, one of your beloved "hip" friends comes with a HotChip cd in one hand and the newest Radiohead remixes in the other, and kindly jokes:
"Hey Johnny Clegg, go play your djembe in the park. You wanna dance? Now listen to that music, it hasnt been released yet !" You'd come back home later and look at yourself in the mirror: no beard, no check shirt, no Keith Haring glasses on. Just not hip enough. But a miracle happened recently. You're the one who's
in now: the most sought after bands of the underground and in the taste-making blogs, like Gang Gang dance, Rainbow Arabia, Vampire Week end all feature big chunks of african music and everybody finds it just fine !
Africa in dotsOne would be tempted to view it as a sequel of the 80's, when pop stars were flirting heavily with african music, Paul Simon and his Graceland album being a great symbol of it, M.J 's Moonwalker outro too. Bits of Africa, with artists sticking to their own genre, using african music to give it a different swing. Vampire Week end's last album, even if it is more anecdotic than deeply rooted, worked out pretty well in that direction. In "White Sky" for example, an arpeggio reminiscent of congolese guitar is produced as an electro loop, mixed with a voice blatantly similar to that of Paul Simon. Ezra Koenig, the band's singer, also worked with London based afro-electro act, The Very Best, along with malawian singer Esau Mwanwaya. And again, it's all about East Africa...frenchman Etienne Tron, one of the founders of the project, explains:
" We met him by chance in London, buying a bicycle from him. As for East African voices, like those of South Africa, they are very melodic, and they match perfectly our own occidental vision of pop music." About his interpretation of the growing number of interactions between independent or avant garde pop and african music, he asserts
"I am very skeptical on that issue. We just came back from a summer festivals tour in Australia, most of the line ups are made up of bands like that, they're like clones. They dress, they play the same way. And since good ideas propagate fast with the internet it's easy to know which ingredients to use if you want success." Then adds
"As for Ezra, it's different. One day he told that independent press:" The question is not why I listen to african music, but why you don't."
A question of methodAnother road exists, one that finds its origin in 1980s underground new wave. Bands like Talking Heads or Oingo Boingo could claim fathership on what bands like Gang Gang Dance or Rainbow Arabia are doing nowadays. For this eclectic kind of new wave, quite sought after today in the hip circles, the idea back then wasn't just to play this or that african style, but rather to follow working methods as far as possible from the stakhanovist ones that were the standard of that time. As close as possible to the african approach, using genuinely african concepts, the polyrythmic one for instance, like Talking Heads' "Remain in light" album. Today some bands follow the same path, and this multidirectionnal approach, using elements from Maghreb, Nigeria and Congo in the same song, is common now. Rainbow Arabia's Danny Preston confirms:
"For the new record we are working on, we are mixing an 80’s sound along with an industrial and african sound. Talking Heads has always been one of our favorites, but we have also been revisiting bands like Tears for Fears, Psychedelics furs and numerous 80’s band that used ethnic keyboard and drum machine sounds."
Rather than just spice, what we have here is a background to the whole work. This taste for eclectism, polyrythmics and spontaneity could be seen as a more "african" way of working, picking up from diferent genres -a specific feature of urban music from Africa.
"Today, with blogs like awesome tapes from Africa, or great labels like Sublime Frequencies , you can go any direction, basically. Personnally, Budda musique's Éthiopiques series and the discovery of Fela were fundamental." He adds:
"Also, dance music has become more popular which may lead artists wanting to find new types of rhythms for their beats. Right now, people seem to be really interested in Africa from everything from music, art, fashion to local politics. I think it is matching up with the styles that are in our current generation, with it’s bright colors, funky designs and polyrhythmic beats"
For others though, playing african music is
the concept, generally backed up by african musicians, in order to look more legit and sound better. It may work. Toubab Krewe (toubab meaning "whitie" in arabic) is a college band of whities from North Carolina, that made it pretty simple: they play malian music, with malian musicians. They do it well, and african musicians get their share of their music's success, making everybody happy. Sometimes too, it's a flop. The case of Franz Ferdinand is quite eloquent. As they tried to gather with Orchestre Polytyhtmo de Cotonou during Marsatac festival in Marseilles, the disapointing result was a sort of double monologue, despite the great talent of both bands. An inevitable outcome for that kind of hasted encounter.
Africa in advanceIn this ever changing pop-meets-afro landscape, there are bands recognized as the pioneers. In this category, the number ones are...musicians from early 60s Western Africa of course! It is hard not to hear, listening to Congo's Ryco Jazz or Benin's Gnonnas Pedro -the leader of Orchestre Poly Rythmo who recorded with Charles Aznavour in 1964- the influence of early 60s french tv pop show "salut les copains", that was being watched every week. When moroccan singer/guitar player Jalil Bennis, a local version of Johnny Hallyday sang Nino Ferrer's Mirza in arabic, the walls were shaking ! As for the pauses taken by Bamako's youth whose live were captured by legendary malian photographer Malick Sidibe, they are another proof: in its daily life Africa was absorbing and transforming western yéyé pop. It was french and often bad, but the result was so good that a Johnny Hallyday fan could hardly recognize his idol's song!
Closer to what is being done today, Extra Golden, born in 2004 in Nairobi from the encounter of two north american rock musicians and two singers of benga, a local version of congolese rumba, should be mentionned. The long dating interest of its foudners for african music -one of them has a PhD in musicology- could explain the seriousness of their commitment. The fact that benga in itself is a transnational interpretation of a foreign music language, too. Alex Minoff, one of the band's leaders:
" I know that I tend to draw a lot on west african francophone influences. Our first album from 1997 even had a sample of applause from an old Malian record. Naturally, we tried to incorporate elements of African guitar styles into our group before Extra Golden. One song had a band that Ian recorded at a Kenyan party crossfade into one of our own songs."
What are the recipees as far as blending US rock and kenyan heritage is concerned? It's not easy, but Alex gives a clue:
"There are old field recordings of Kikuyu people singing songs that sound exactly like Jimmie Rodgers. Benga music is based on the same 1-4-5 chord structure that basic blues and rock-n-roll use, too. So, there is some common ground between us and them." As for the minimalistic efect of the strings, it gives it an experimental pop twist
"We use patterns one might find played on a nyatiti (an 8-stringed Kenyan lyre). But I promise that John Cage has never come up during our writing sessions!" The musical link between Mississipi and Niger rivers may have been established better than the one he works on, Alex explains:
"There is definitely a connection between american music and east african music. It isn't discussed nearly as much as the connection you mentionned because a) there is no "missing link" element and, b) in the US far fewer people listen to or know anything about east african music. Otieno, the singer, is a lifetime Kenny Rogers fan!"One can't help thinking, beyond the mere musical reasons, that the audience has evolved too, following a trend. Etienne Tron doesn't agree:
"In any party or concert, if you played something related to Africa, people would apreciate it instantly. It's always been like that. The media are the ones who were reluctant." And when asked why the post Obama days are so filled with interest for all things African, Alex Minoff answers:
" As far as I am concerned, I started buying african tapes under Reagan ! It's just that today with blogs like awesome tapes from Africa and compilations like those of the Smithsonian, things have changed. Now, you go online, someone says, "Syliphone is cool". A couple of clicks later and the entire catalog is on your ipod. Where is the fun in that? "
