/ 30 July 2008

The other world

Some critics have rapped the world-music label Putumayo for reducing the continent’s diverse and rich musical heritage to Afro-themed compilations. What is conveniently overlooked in the argument is the careful insight and the rigorous selection process that seems to go into Putumayo’s compilations that include African Groove, Women of Africa and Acoustic Africa.

“We go through a pretty extensive process,” insists Putumayo’s founder, Dan Storper, in a telephonic interview from his base in New York.

Storper says Putumayo, which issues Gypsy, Latino and other world-music genres, has a database of more than 10 000 songs. He has three researchers, one in The Netherlands, one in Vermont and another in New Orleans. Sometimes the selection process involves travelling to the country or region of the music they want to release.

Storper has the final say in what eventually gets on to a CD, although he seriously considers the input of his colleagues. “I choose all of the songs and play them for our staff with the belief that if our employees like them, chances are others in the world will.”

This year’s compilation of Afro-themed party music is unsurprisingly called African Party. The CD includes tunes from the Congo (Brazzaville), Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Angola, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

An obvious problem with any collection is justifying what has been left out. I must say I was disappointed by the omission of the Democratic Republic of Congo, surely the continent’s biggest party animals and originators of Africa’s most sensual music, the rhumba. There is some compensation in the inclusion of local jazz guitarist Louis Mhlanga’s raunchy track named, appropriately enough, Rhumba all the Way.

Storper argues that the inclusion of Mhlanga and Mapumba from Congo (Brazzaville) should suffice. The idea behind this collection was to make it “a mid-tempo party album”.

Besides some mellow moments (exemplified by the likes of Macire Sylla’s Perenperen) we have come to expect Oliver Mtukudzi on most African compilations. There is Kunze Kwadoka, an Eighties original. The version on this compilation is a recent one, whose pace and tempo has quickened in the past decade. The song appeals to the youth to be responsible in their relationships. It also features Zimbabwean vocalist and mbira player Chiwoniso Maraire’s Nguva Yekufara (Time to Be Happy), a song that lends meaning to the theme.

Tuku’s song has popular acclaim and its inclusion is a symptom of a disease — dare I call it that? — that seems to afflict most compilation albums. They feature the same voices and the same known songs, something that is a tad lazy and panders to shallow commercial interests.

African Dreamland is yet another CD that shows Putumayo’s ability to theme its compilations. It features soft, soothing ballads — the type that are sung as night falls to lull babies strapped to their mothers to sleep. It features Ladysmith Black Mambazo, whose song Nomatemba is about a girl who leaves her village to go to the city.

Then there is Mapumba, whose offering Mimi celebrates the musician’s ability to sing and play the guitar: “This guitar is my life/ That’s why I will sing for the rest of my life.” There is also Chiwoniso’s Usa Cheme, a folk lullaby I used to sing for my kid brother. It intones: “Quiet now, my child. Don’t cry while I am here.”

This collection is more diverse and reflective, sampling some of Africa’s great vocalists. Although varied, African Dreamland seems to be bound by the mother’s insistent desire to soothe a child who wants to go to sleep but is unable to. It is the kind of CD that should be in the collections of all lovers of African music.

Perhaps this explains why Putumayo’s South African and continental markets continue to grow. Although it is also, in part, as a result of its local presence: it has an office in Cape Town. Despite this positive outlook, Putumayo faces distribution challenges and the usual difficulties that hinder smaller independent labels. It is, however, trying to broaden into a media company with interests in DVDs, books and other products.