Liital by Aby Ngana Diop
2. September 2014
Aby Ngana Diop
Liital
Aby Ngana Diop's Liital is a groundbreaking album that fuses traditional Senegalese
taasu—a form of rhythmic spoken poetry—with the modern sounds of mbalax, Senegal's
popular dance music genre. Originally released in 1994, this album showcases Diop's
powerful vocal delivery, accompanied by sabar and tama drums, synthesizers, and
backing vocals. The 2014 reissue by Awesome Tapes From Africa brought this unique
blend to a global audience, highlighting Diop's role as a pioneering female griot
in Senegalese music.
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Aby Ngana Diops Liital ist ein wegweisendes Album, das traditionelle senegalesische
Taasu—eine Form rhythmischer gesprochener Poesie—mit den modernen Klängen des Mbalax,
Senegals beliebtem Tanzmusikgenre, verbindet. Ursprünglich 1994 veröffentlicht,
präsentiert dieses Album Diops kraftvollen Gesang, begleitet von Sabar- und Tama-Trommeln,
Synthesizern und Hintergrundgesang. Die Neuauflage 2014 durch Awesome Tapes From Africa
brachte diese einzigartige Mischung einem weltweiten Publikum näher und unterstrich
Diops Rolle als wegweisende weibliche Griot in der senegalesischen Musik.
Tracklist:
Dieuleul-Dieuleul
Ndame
Yaye Penda Mbaye
Liital
Sapaly
Ndadje
Awesome Tapes from Africa
Awesome Tapes From Africa is a record label and web site operated by Brian Shimkovitz.
The site was founded in 2006 in Brooklyn, New York.
The site was created as a way for Shimkovitz to share music he had come across while on a scholarship in Ghana.
He was interested in the variety of genres and artists he found, distributed largely on cassette tapes at markets, but that he had not come across outside West Africa.
In 2011 he transitioned the site from just a blog with posted recordings of collected tapes posted without the artists' permission to a commercial record label.
The goal of the company is to seed and expand an audience for the artists presented as well as provide opportunities to sell albums and tour.
Artists are paid every six months and receive 50% of the profits from an album.
Tapes presented on Awesome Tapes come from a variety of sources: gathered in Ghanaian street markets, purchased in stores in the US, or sent by others over the internet.
In addition to the website, Shimkovitz DJ's concerts, clubs and at festivals as Awesome Tapes From Africa, as well as hosts a show on Dublab.
Most Awesome Tapes From Africa releases are official rereleases of out-of-print cassettes from African musicians and bands.
SK Kakraba's Songs of Paapieye is the first album to consist of a new release. Although music is distributed in Africa via MP3 on mobile phones, Shimkovitz says the widest variety of music in West Africa is still available on cassette tape.
In the journal Public Culture, Awesome Tapes From Africa, along with record labels Sublime Frequencies and Parallel World, is discussed as being emblematic of "World Music 2.0" for combining the "open source ethics of online networks with long-standing countercultural networks of circulation" within cassette culture and music distribution in developing nations.