Arts + Culture
The kora had always been played by men. Sona Jobarteh, from a Gambian griot family, changed that
Sona Jobarteh, born in London into one of The Gambia's great griot families, is widely described as the…
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Arts + Culture
They called him the Rainmaker: Majek Fashek, “Send Down the Rain” and Nigeria’s reggae moment
Majek Fashek's "Send Down the Rain", from his 1988 album Prisoner of Conscience, made him Nigeria's biggest reggae…
Music
Barack Obama danced the Lipala with Sauti Sol in 2015. How four Nairobi friends became Kenya’s biggest band
Sauti Sol, the Kenyan band formed by four friends in Nairobi in 2005, became East Africa's most successful…
Music
Bongo Flava was never waiting for the West
Diamond Platnumz, Alikiba, Zuchu, Harmonize and Marioo: a guide to Tanzania's pop machine and why it never needed…
Arts + Culture
Seventy-one generations of griots, one kora: Toumani Diabaté, who died in 2024
Toumani Diabaté, the Malian kora master from a long line of griots, won Grammys with Ali Farka Touré…
Arts + Culture
Mulatu Astatke mixed Ethiopian scales with jazz and Latin grooves. Jim Jarmusch put Ethio-jazz in Hollywood
Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz, blended Ethiopian modes with jazz and Latin rhythms in the 1960s and…
Arts + Culture
“Umqombothi” was a 1986 party song about home-brewed beer. Hotel Rwanda put it on screens worldwide
Yvonne Chaka Chaka, known as the Princess of Africa, became one of South Africa's first black teenage pop…
Arts + Culture
Lucky Dube sang about prisons and apartheid and sold reggae to a continent. A carjacker killed him in 2007
Lucky Dube, South Africa's biggest reggae star, began in mbaqanga before switching to reggae in the 1980s. Songs…
Arts + Culture
“Ebi Te Yie” was a song about animals in 1967. Ghanaians heard it as a warning about power
Nana Kwame Ampadu and the African Brothers Band released "Ebi Te Yie" in 1967, a highlife song built…
Music
Twelve years with Wizkid’s Ayo
Wizkid's 2014 album Ayo gave us "Ojuelegba" and set up everything from One Dance to Made in Lagos.…