In 1951, Folkways Records, on their Ethnic Folkways imprint, released a two-LP set called Negro Folk Music of Africa and America. The double LP featured 24 field recordings from exotic and unknown regions of the world (at least to most Americans), from South Africa to French Equatorial Africa, Zanzibar and Ethiopia, to Brazil, Columbia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Alabama, and even Mississippi. In addition to being one of the first long-player attempts to document connections between the music of the motherland and the American south, Negro Folk Music is also one of the craziest and deepest meditations on rhythm you'll ever hear. There's some pure voodoo on the collection — yelps of passion deeper than even Scott Stapp could imagine — that bridges African chant with American holler and moan. Writes Richard Alan Waterman in the liner notes: "... traits of African musical style have become intertwined in a wide variety of ways and in many different places with elements derived from Europe to produce a series of well-integrated, vigorous, and peculiarly American hybrids."
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Perhaps the most peculiar American hybrid to result from this cross-pollination is the one spawned by the overeducated Caucasian subspecies known as "The Hipster." From F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s to the Birth of the Cool and beyond, upper-crusties have long been drawn to mysterious African and African-American musical idioms in an effort to reconcile their cultured effeteness and that burning ember of rhythm nestled deep within their pelvic bones. Whines of privilege must occasionally give way to howls of defiance, after all, regardless of pedigree. William Burroughs chanted with the Master Musicians of Joujouka in Morocco (as did the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones a decade later); John Fahey was digging for old Charley Patton records with the same drive as latter-day backpackers rustling for Tribe Called Quest 12-inches. Keith Richards chomped down American rhythm & blues one 78 at a time. In two decades, music geeks will no doubt be searching out old crunk and ghetto-tech singles because they wanna hear something deep, something real.
And by some curious quirk of history/fate — a convergence of American imperialist guilt, unlimited access to global music, and creative empathy for a region currently in the midst of blood-soaked turmoil? — the past few years have seen American indie rockers get their Mommyland juju groove on. On the East Coast, Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend harness free-floating West African guitar lines and polyrhythms; the Kenyan/American marriage of Extra Golden (two Kenyans and two white Americans) and Nigeria-frenzied Chicago Afrobeat Project both bridge borders in the Midwest; and in Los Angeles, Africa and Southeast Asia collide with the West in Dengue Fever, and the curiously funky Hebrew-African blend of Fool's Gold delivers insurgent energy.
In the interest of nudging this miniature movement along, and feeding it a healthy, balanced diet, what follows is a primer for budding proponents. Just as in 1976, when a British punk zine drew the frettings for three punk riffs under the title, "Here's three chords. Now go start a band," L.A. Weekly offers a similar instruction: Here's eight records. Now go start a riot. If you're going to steal, you may as well steal from the best.
Fela Ransome-Kuti | Shakara/London Scene | Universal (1971/'72)
Country: Nigeria
Subgenre: Afro-funk
If Africa is shaped like a jumbo shrimp (South Africa being the tail), where is Nigeria? The Adam's apple (if jumbo shrimps do indeed have Adam's apples).
In a nutshell: Fela Kuti made 77 albums, so there are any number of options. But for our purposes, a little reverse pollination might be instructive. Fela Kuti, one of the pillars of 20th-century music, in 1969 spent about six months living in Los Angeles. According to Jay Babcock's definitive feature on Kuti, "Fela: King of the Invisible Art," Kuti and his band (including the amazing Tony Allen, currently of the Good, the Bad and the Queen) gigged six nights a week for five months at 6666 Sunset Boulevard, after which they were given an unceremonious boot by immigration, but not before hooking up with the Black Panthers and carrying their philosophies back to Nigeria. London Scene, recorded at London's Abbey Road studios, consists of Fela Kuti and The Africa 70's first recordings after their departure from L.A. "J'Ehin J'Ehin" ("Chop Teeth Chop Teeth") manages to be as tight and on target as James Brown's Famous Flames jam, with the added bonus of a Latino rhythm infusion that Allen and Kuti learned in Southern California. Coupled with the highlife music of Kuti's youth, the stuff of London Scene and Shakara will never be replicated, no matter how much you study Fela's scales and tablature and biography and dance moves.
Various Artists | Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974 | Buda Musique France (1998)
Country: Ethiopia
Subgenre: Ethio-jazz
If Africa is shaped like a jumbo shrimp, where is Ethiopia? Halfway down the spine.
In a nutshell: I'd wager that this brilliant collection, part of a 23-volume series, is responsible in some measure for the rise of the Converse & Dashiki sound. Specifically: Jim Jarmusch's use of many Ethiopiques songs in his 2005 film, Broken Flowers. Starring hipster icon Bill Murray, the film celebrates Ethiopian music as effectively as it does Murray's quest. The Éthiopiques series of 20th-century indigenous music highlights a lot of different Ethiopian styles, but Volume 4 is in a whole other realm. Featuring the 1970s-era compositions and performances of band leader Mulatu Astatke, these 14 timeless songs transcend borders like clouds drifting across a satellite weather map. "Tezeta," specifically, a smoky romance between a tenor saxophone and piano, sounds like it could have been written by Ellington in 1935 or Coltrane in 1965.
