Nahawa Doumbia - Kanawa
Nahawa Doumbia’s new album Kanawa concisely captures this current moment in Malian history.
The singer reflects on the immigration crisis from the Malian perspective in the title of her new album Kanawa.
Across eight songs recorded in Bamako with a band including traditional and modern instruments,
Doumbia merges her early work that relied on a spare expression of her trademark didadi rhythm with the bombastic range of contemporary Malian pop.
The beautifully complex musical accompaniment that results is courtesy of the large ensemble
she pulled together with producer and arranger (and day one collaborator) N’gou Bagayoko.
The band features two highly expressive Malian string instruments, the ngoni and the slightly smaller kamalé ngoni,
as well as a variety of percussion, drum programming, karignan (a metal scraper) and acoustic and electric guitars.
Doumbia’s daughter, a celebrated singer with her own group and busy concert schedule,
Doussou Bagayoko sings on “Adjorobena,” a song about patience, tolerance and living in peace.
Doumbia weaves together a roadmap of her psyche when it comes to the good and bad life has to offer.
She talks about marriage and women leaving home to join another through the metaphor of a tree in the garden;
there are gunshot samples in the song “Foliwilen” to honor the bravery of hunters, soldiers and other courageous people;
she personifies a bird in “Djougoh” to talk about lazy people; and, in “Ndiagneko” she advises people to ignore critics, just do you.
Nahawa Doumbias neues Album Kanawa fängt diesen aktuellen Moment der malischen Geschichte prägnant ein.
Im Titel ihres neuen Albums Kanawa reflektiert die Sängerin die Einwanderungskrise aus malischer Sicht.
Die acht Songs wurden in Bamako mit einer Band aus traditionellen und modernen Instrumenten aufgenommen,
verschmilzt Doumbia ihr Frühwerk, das sich auf einen sparsamen Ausdruck ihres charakteristischen Didadi-Rhythmus stützt, mit der bombastischen Bandbreite des zeitgenössischen malischen Pop.
Die wunderbar komplexe musikalische Begleitung, die dabei entsteht, verdankt sie dem großen Ensemble
das sie zusammen mit dem Produzenten und Arrangeur (und Mitarbeiter der ersten Stunde) N'gou Bagayoko zusammengestellt hat.
Die Band besteht aus zwei sehr ausdrucksstarken malischen Saiteninstrumenten, der Ngoni und der etwas kleineren Kamalé-Ngoni,
sowie eine Vielzahl von Perkussionsinstrumenten, Schlagzeugprogrammierung, Karignan (ein Metallschaber) und akustische und elektrische Gitarren.
Doumbias Tochter, eine gefeierte Sängerin mit eigener Gruppe und reger Konzerttätigkeit,
Doussou Bagayoko, singt bei "Adjorobena", einem Lied über Geduld, Toleranz und ein Leben in Frieden.
Doumbia entwirft einen Fahrplan ihrer Psyche, wenn es um das Gute und das Schlechte geht, das das Leben zu bieten hat.
Sie spricht über Heirat und Frauen, die ihr Zuhause verlassen, um sich einem anderen anzuschließen, indem sie die Metapher eines Baumes im Garten verwendet;
In dem Lied "Foliwilen" sind Schusssamples zu hören, um die Tapferkeit von Jägern, Soldaten und anderen mutigen Menschen zu ehren;
in "Djougoh" personifiziert sie einen Vogel, um über faule Menschen zu sprechen; und in "Ndiagneko" rät sie den Menschen, Kritiker zu ignorieren und einfach zu tun, was sie wollen.
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.