>From zouk to mbalax, world music is available — and pushing back the borders of Anglo- American culture. SHAUN DE WAAL dips into its
SOME years ago, I lamented in these pages that there was more African and Third World music to be found in London’s Virgin Megastore than in all of South Africa. So it is pleasing to be able to report that since then things have changed, and the vast panoply of musics other than Anglo-American pop is now infinitely more accessible to us.
Weve been visited by luminaries such as Salif Keita, Airto Moreira, Manu Dibango and Ismael Lo. Record companies are promoting world music with new vigour — Polygram are pushing Island’s Mango label, and Tusk have a “Beautiful Music in a World of Noise” campaign which, while its tagline might annoy lovers of grungy guitar, helps widen listeners’ musical horizons. World music is on TV, inserted into CCV’s Sonic Boom, and it’s on radio, in SAfm’s Afropop Worldwide. And, best of all, it’s in the record shops.
A trawl through the most compendious volume on the subject, The Rough Guide to World Music (distributed by Penguin), gives one a sense of the vastness of the field — and an idea of the riches waiting to be discovered. The people who do the Rough Guides have been here, and a volume on South Africa is in the works. At last, we can enjoy the feeling that we’re not just an outpost of Anglo-American culture.
The Rough Guide to World Music, which takes in everything from zouk to mbalax and gamelan to cumbias, points out that the term “world music”was originally invented for a month- long marketing campaign.
In 1987, various London record companies found themselves frustrated by the fact that their African, Latin American and other releases weren’t “finding rack space because records stores had no obvious place to put them”. So they cooked up a label for the stuff that didn’t go under Rock, Jazz, Male Vocal and the rest, and did a month’s worth of marketing around it.
But the name stuck, occasionally varied with the term “world beat”, first coined by the Germans. For all its vagueness, it’s the most convenient over-arching term for styles that are based on specific ethnic musics while maintaining a dialogue with pop and rock. This is the area in which the most interesting cross-overs are taking place: the best of world music is truly global, as influences overlap and mingle into a delicious masala of modes and textures. The variety subsumed under this banner is staggering, and generic lines are often hard to draw, but it’s a start — and the thrill of discovery awaits.
So, if we were to take a semi-arbitrary sample of what is now available, what would we come up with? Here are some new records worth
l Zap Mama are a band of women led by Marie Daulne, who was born in Zaire of a Belgian father and a Zairean mother. Their new album, Sabsylma (Crammed Discs), displays an eclecticism that draws on pygmy music, gospel and doowop, set against Afro-Cuban rhythms. The vocals are the most prominent and pleasing aspect: Zap Mama sound at one moment like a traditional ceremony in full chant, at another like The Roches.
l Boukman Eksperyans is a Haitian band that hasn’t always been on the right side of the island’s rulers. The Duvalier regime apparently didn’t take to music based on the ritual sounds of the voodoo cults, which is what Boukman Eksperyans do. Their latest album, Liberte (Pran Pou Pran’l!), on Mango, is propelled by African-style polyrhythms and garnished with rock guitar and even some synthesiser. It adds up to a very appealing
l Dadawa’s Sister Drum (Tusk) is the first Chinese record to sell a million in the West, which is understandable: it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard. With spine-chilling vocals that soar and sweep and seem to possess the very grandeur of the Himalayas, this really is a break from Western music.
The singer is Zhu Zheqin, who stepped aside from a career as a popular Chinese chanteuse and, with the highly lauded composer-producer He Xuntian, delved into the sacred music of Tibet. I don’t know what the result’s political-correctness rating is (Tibet is still militarily occupied by China), but it makes an extraordinary CD.
l Mouth Music proves that world music doesn’t have to come from the Third World — there are alternatives in the First World too. Shorelife (Tusk), their third album, shows the Scottish group at full tilt, bringing Gaelic choral folk into collision with the trancy rhythms of ambient house.
l Global Village Trucking Company are based in Canada, though their membership seems multi- national. Crossing Borders (Global/S2) presents a brassy mix of reggae, funk, calypso and jazz, with danceable tunes and a rich big- band sound.
l Salif Keita is one of the best-known of Africa’s host of stars. His brand-new release, Folon (Mango), is masterful and affecting, overflowing with soulful sophistication.
l And, not to be forgotten, there are any number of South Africans who are as much a part of world music as anyone. For a start, Tananas surely lead the pack. Gito Baloi’s Ekaya (Polygram) is a pleasure, and so is Sankomota’s first album, recorded a decade ago by the nascent Shifty Studios, and now re- released on CD by Tic Tic Bang. To my mind, it’s still their best record.
Tic Tic Bang also market the Stern’s catalogue, where you can find such wonders as Trinidad’s Mighty Sparrow, and Talking Timbuktu, the acoustic-guitar collaboration between American Ry Cooder and Malian Ali Farka Toure.
And that’s just the tiniest scratch on the