Awesome Tapes From Africa

Ata Kak's cassette Obaa Sima fell on deaf ears when it was self-released in Ghana and Canada in 1994.

The music on the recording - an amalgam of highlife, Twi-language rap, funk and disco - is presented with the passion of a Prince record and the DIY-bedroom-recording lo-fi charm of early Chicago house music.

The astute self-taught song craft and visionary blend of sounds and rhythms has made the album a left-field cult favorite among adventurous listeners worldwide.

Awesome Tapes From Africa founder Brian Shimkovitz found the tape in 2002 in Cape Coast, Ghana - one of only a few ever pressed - and later made it the inaugural post on the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog.

Hundreds of thousands of downloads, YouTube views, music video tributes and remixes, as well as years of mystery regarding Ata Kak's whereabouts, culminate in this remastered release featuring rare photos and the full back story of one of the internet age's most enigmatic musicians.

Tracklisting:
1. Obaa Sima
2. Moma Yendodo
3. Adagya
4. Medofo
5. Daa Nyinaa
6. Yemmpa Aba
7. Bome Nnwom

At the age of 28, Awalom Gebremariam arrived in the United States, following a years-long journey from Eritrea. He'd made it to a refugee camp in Ethiopia several years ago and eventually attained asylum status for passage to America. But before he left his hometown, Eritrea's capital Asmara, he made his first and only recording so far, Desdes. 

In 2006, Awalom began to teach himself two of Eritrea's most recognizable and important folk instruments, the wata and the krar. Although they have roots in traditional music, they are heard in most Eritrean folk and pop recordings.

Awalom completed Desdes in 2007, not long before he departed Eritrea. Because Awalom left after the recording he never received any money for cassette and CD sales. But he also didn't get to find out how much of an impact the songs have had locally.

His songs appear to focus on love, but Awalom isn't speaking about romantic love per se. Much of the music Awalom heard growing up was intertwined with Eritrea's difficult and contentious split from Ethiopia. In 2012, during a trip to Switzerland to help promote a film about biking in Eritrea, ATFA was given a copy of Desdes by fixed-gear bicycle athlete Patrick Seabase, the documentary's protagonist. Seabase gave a copy to ATFA founder Brian Shimkovitz as a gift and it later appeared on the ATFA blog. !

A few years later Shimkovitz was contacted by some agencies in North Carolina, where Awalom had settled. Through a translator very one decided to work together on a reissue of his recording. It took many months to source a clean master but now the album is ready and Awalom's goals are clear.

He spent years waiting for the chance to escape economic and political turmoil at home. Now 29 and living in North Carolina, he works in a restaurant and plans to bring his music to Eritrean communities across North America as well as newer listeners with whom his powerful sounds and remarkable journey will deeply resonate.

Tracklisting:
1. Desdes
2. Tehhelo
3. Teumat Chena
4. Aadu
5. Eritrea
6. Salel
7. Segamaye
8. Malegaanya
9. Gwaal Haagaraye
10. Showite Sigem

Bola s music melds sheer force of spirit with a sound not often heard by ears outside the remote Upper East Region of Ghana. This man who grew up herding livestock in the savannah, far away from the tropical coast and cosmopolitan cities of Accra and Kumasi, has aligned himself with national and international means of expression to transform his hometown sound into something downright avant-garde.

His bold fury stems from the kologo'a two-stringed lute with a calabash gourd resonator' and Frafra language vocals, emitted in raspy bursts. Traditionally, kologo performances occur at pito (local beer made from fermented millet or sorghum) bars, weddings, funerals, festivals or spontaneous jams on the street, which are the environments where Bola honed his craft as a solo musician. In recent years, he came into contact with people like his mentor Guy One who helped him get into the studio to document what is some of the most dynamic music to come out of Ghana since the emergence of hiplife in the mid-'90s.

Volume 7, which came out in 2009, is just one entry in a brilliant series of recordings Bola has released on CD and cassette. Although he employs a traditional instrument and the age-old mode of griot story-telling, Bola embraces elements of up-tothe- minute mainstream Ghanaian music'drum machines, synths, bone-shaking bass. Inspired by pioneering kologo greats like King Ayisoba, Bola has taken a dynamic instrument used by traditional healers and herbalists to sing to god in search of advice and taken it to futuristic heights.

Tracklisting:
1. Burilbunbol Suma
2. Makamiba
3. Yine Ntaripaga
4. Tivona Vonbubo
5. Yine Mmema
6. Tigantabame
7. Hoyenbesa Nini
8. Abayetidu Ma

From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, a vibrant music scene in Somaliaʼs capital Mogadishu was teeming with pop and folk musicians exploring the boundaries of regional sensibilities. With influences spanning several genres of Somali traditional music, often meshed with Western pop, jazz and Middle-Eastern elements, a swirling diversity of sounds were being created, consumed, supported and encouraged.

Dur-Dur Band emerged during a time when Somaliaʼs distinctive contribution to the creative culture in the Horn of Africa was visible and abundant. Thousands of recordings made at the Somali National Theatre, Radio Mogadishu and other studios, were complemented by the nightclubs at Hotel Juba, Jazeera Hotel and Hotel al-Curuuba, creating a flourishing music scene. Bands like Dur-Dur, Iftin, Shareero, on one hand, were inspired by everyone from Michael Jackson and Phil Collins to Bob Marley and Santana, as well as James Brown and American soul music.

Equally active were groups performing regional folk musics and promoting the traditional side of Somali music. These groups helped develop a continuity with historical musical practices and oral literature that persist in popularity to this day. Seminal outfits like Waaberi and Horseed, in addition to a litany of celebrated qaraami musicians, generated a legacy of masterworks. These seasoned musiciansʼ efforts rippled through the music scene and spread to countries beyond as many artists began to emigrate when the country destabilized.

This recording, which was remastered from a cassette copy source, is a document of Dur-Dur Band after establishing itself as one of the most popular bands in Mogadishu. The challenge of locating a complete long-player from this era is evidenced by the fidelity of this recording. However, the complex, soulful music penetrates the hiss. By 1987 Dur-Dur Band's line-up featured singers Sahra Abukar Dawo, Abdinur Adan Daljir, Mohamed Ahmed Qomal and Abdukadir Mayow Buunis, backed by Abukar Dahir Qasim (guitar), Yusuf Abdi Haji Aleevi (guitar), Ali Dhere (trumpet), Muse Mohamed Araci (saxophone), Abdul Dhegey (saxophone), Eise Dahir Qasim (keyboard), Mohamed Ali Mohamed (bass), Adan Mohamed Ali Handal (drums), Ooyaaye Eise and Ali Bisha (congas) and Mohamed Karma, Dahir Yaree and Murjaan Ramandan (backing vocals). Dur-Dur Band managed to release almost a dozen recordings before emigrating to Ethiopia, Djibouti and America.

Dur-Dur Band was considered a 'private band,' not beholden to government pressure to sing about political topics. They practiced a love- and culture-oriented lyricism. Government-sponsored bands like those of the military and the police forces, as well as many of the well-known folk musicians, made songs that were chiefly political or patriotic in nature. In a country that has been disrupted by civil war, heated clan divisions and security concerns, music and the arts has suffered from stagnation in recent years. Many of the best-known musicians left the country. Music became nearly outlawed in Mogadishu in 2010.

Incidentally, more than ten years after Volume 5 (1987) was recorded at Radio Mogadishu, the state-run broadcaster was the only station in Somalia to resist the ban on music briefly enacted by Al-Shabab. Dur-Dur Band is a powerful and illustrative lens through which to appreciate a facet of the incredible sounds in Somalia before the country's stability took a turn. But Somali music of all kinds continues to thrive thanks in part to the diaspora living in cities worldwide.

An extensive network of news, music and video websites, along with dozens of voluminous YouTube channels, makes clear an exciting relentlessness among artists. Reports of musicians returning to Mogadishu from years abroad bodes well for the immediate future of music and expression in Somalia.


Tracks:
1. Dur-Dur Band Introduction
2. Hayeelin
3. Halelo
4. Fagfagley
5. Ilawad Cashaqa
6. Garsore Waa Ilaah
7. Aada Fududey Iga Ahow
8. Tajir Waa Ilaah
9. Dholey
10. Amiina Awdaay
11. Dooyo

The acclaimed and highly sought-after LP by Hailu Mergia and the Walias, Tche Belew, an album of instrumentals released in 1977, is perhaps the most seminal recording released in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution.

The story of the Walias band is a critical chapter in Ethiopian popular music, taking place during a period of music industry flux and political complexity in the country. Hailu Mergia, a keyboardist and arranger diligently working the nightclub scene in Addis Ababa, formed the Walias in the early 1970's with a core group of musicians assembled from prior working bands.

They played Mergia's funk- and soul-informed tunes, while cutting 45rpm singles with various vocalists. While the Walias performed at top hotels and played the presidential palace twice, their relationship with the Derg regime was complex, evidenced by the removal of one song from the record by government censors.

Decades later, Hailu Mergia was surprised to see the album fetching more than $4,000 at online auctions (it helped that the most popular of all Ethiopian tunes "Musicawi Silt" appeared on the record).

Now everyone has the chance to listen again - or for the first time - to this timeless pillar of Ethiopian popular music.

Tracklisting:
1. Tche Belew
2. Yemiasleks Fikir
3. Yikirta Lemminalehu
4. Musicawi Silt
5. Lomi Tera-tera
6. Woghenei
7. Ibakish Tarekigne
8. Birtukane
9. Eti Gual Blenai
10. Yenuro Tesfa Alegne

Hailu Mergia is a one-man band. In 1985 master accordionist and veteran Walias Band leader/arranger/keyboardist released the Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument / Shemonmuanaye cassette. The tape is a nostalgic effort to bring back the vintage accordion sound of his youth. Hailu was already celebrated for his work with the industryshifting Addis Ababa ethiojazz and funk outfit the Walias Band, and he pressed forward using new tools to reshape the popular sounds of the past. Adding a Moog synthesizer, Rhodes electric piano and rhythm machine to the harmonic layering of his accordion, he creates hauntingly psychedelic instrumentals.

These songs draw from famous traditional and modern Ethiopian songs, as Hailu matches Amhara, Tigrinya and Oromo melodies to otherworldly flavors soaked in jazz and blues. The result is a lush, futuristic landscape, balancing Ethiopian music's signature pentatonic modes and melodic shape with beautiful analog synth flair. Hailu Mergia was born in Debre Birhan, Ethiopia in 1946. He went to school in Addis Ababa and then joined the army music department. He was later singing in small bars as a freelance musician when he joined a casual band, touring across the Ethiopian provinces as a singer and accordion player for almost a year. After the group broke up, he started performing in nightclubs across the city. He and his mates formed Walias Band and did something no other band in Ethiopian nightclub history had done: they started buying their own musical instruments.

Until then the club owners were supplying the instruments and had the power to fire musicians at will. Following eight years playing at the Hilton Hotel, Hailu and Walias Band went to the United States and toured widely in 1982-1983. Despite breaking ground as the first private band to tour the States and play state dinners at the Derg government palace, some of the band stayed in America while others went back to Addis. After settling in America, Hailu made a one-man band recording with accordion for the first time, mixing in Rhodes electric piano, Moog synthesizer and a rhythm machine. That was 1985. This recording was inspired by the early memories of his first instrument, the accordion.

Nowadays he's making his living as a self-employed taxi driver at Dulles International Airport while continuing to record and practice his music as often as possible. The reissue of this recording brings back a moment when Ethiopian music was shifting from acoustic-based performances to recordings using more and more synthesized elements. While the resulting sound of that shift has its critics Hailu Mergia's initial experiments with "switched-on" solo instrumentals based on Ethiopian folk and popular music captures a singular feeling dripping in ambiance and a very human emotional energy.

Tracklist:
1. Shemonmuanaye
2. Sewnetuwa
3. Laloye
4. Wegene
5. Hari Meru Meru
6. Amrew Demkew
7. Anchin Alay Alegn
8. Ambasel
9. Hebo Lale
10. Belew Beduby
11. Shilela

Remastered to original quality.

In the 1980s, Abidjan's Jess Sah Bi & Peter One became one of the most popular musical acts in not just the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire), but broader West Africa, eventually performing with a full band to stadium-sized audiences at home and throughout Benin, Guinea, Mali and Togo.

Although they'd been popular radio and television performers for several years prior, the catalyst for Jess and Peter achieving this new level of stardom was their debut album, Our Garden Needs Its Flowers, recorded and released in 1985. In contrast with the heaving funk, disco and reggae sounds of the day, Our Garden Needs Its Flowers was a lush fusion of traditional Ivorian village songs and American and English country and folk-rock music.

Jess and Peter sang in French, English and Gouro, delivering beautifully harmonized meditations on social injustice and inequality, calls for unity across the African continent, an end to apartheid in South Africa and the odd song for the ladies, all set against lush guitar riffs, rustic harmonica and rollicking feel-good rhythms. Surprisingly, it's the first time the album has been re-released in a high-fidelity, legally licensed form.

Jess and Peter had shared experiences of loving and drawing inspiration from the traditional and ceremonial songs they remembered their mothers singing in their respective hometowns of Barata and Ono. In addition, hearing imported country and folk-rock music over the radio in the early 70s was a lightbulb moment for both of them.

Jess recalls DJs playing Kenny Rogers, Don Williams and Dolly Parton on the radio in the morning, while Peter notes the significant presence Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Creedence Clearwater Revival had in his listening life.

Country music and folk-rock weren't very popular with the general public. But interest was bubbling up within the growing student population, who connected with the protest sentiments expressed by many English and American artists of the era and loved the sound as well. 'It's very nice music, with very nice harmonies, and it's different from what you hear every day,' Peter says.

'The language was a big barrier though. You had to learn English to understand the songs, and the students were the ones learning English.' Having access to education along with their awareness of growing social and political inequality and injustice made students the perfect audience for folk music in Ivory Coast.

Tracklisting:
1. Clipo Clipo
2. Katin
3. Kango
4. Minmanle?
5. Our Garden Needs Its Flowers
6. Apartheid
7. African Chant
8. Solution

Release Date: 17/08/2018

NA Hawa Doumbia's La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3 marks the first release for new label Awesome Tapes From Africa, a blog and DJ project known worldwide for shedding light on obscure and wonderful musical treasures from the African continent. This early recording'made in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 1982'captures the dualities inherent in Doumbia's music from early on: a stripped-down, raw backdrop supported by warm sonics; feminist expressions of social issues imparted through stark refrains.

Doumbia's urgent, distinctive vocals and hypnotic didadi rhythm from her native Bougouni have made her a respected voice in Mali for more than three decades. Today she is best known for her contributions to Wassoulou music. The singer was raised by her grandmother'her mother died shortly after giving birth. But before passing away she predicted Doumbia would be a singer'something surprising, since she didn't come from the jeli (or griot) caste of hereditary singers. Her grandparents resorted to the magical powers of blacksmiths to fight it, but ultimately the prediction proved correct.

Doumbia's music is more powerful than magic. Long out-of-print seminal album. First release for well-known blog/DJ Awesome Tapes From Africa. Nâ Hawa Doumbia has seen decades of success in Mali and is poised for wider recognition. Fair trade music--artists receive 50/50 split of all proceeds.

Tracklisting:
1. KorO Dia (à Mamaye Dramé L'inoubliable)
2. Kungo Sogoni
3. Danaya (à Sidi Konaté Pour Toujours)
4. Dan Té Dinyé La

Professor Rhythm is the production moniker of South African music man Thami Mdluli. Throughout the 1980's, Mdluli was member of chart-topping groups Taboo and CJB, playing bubblegum pop to stadiums. Mdluli became an in-demand producer for influential artists (like Sox and Sensations, among many others) and in-house producer for important record companies like Eric Frisch and Tusk.

During the early '80s, Mdluli projects usually featured an instrumental dance track. These hot instrumentals became rather popular. Fans demanded to hear more of these backing tracks without vocals, he says, so Mdluli began to make solo instrumental albums in 1985 as Professor Rhythm.

He got the name before the recordings began, from fans, and positive momentum from audiences and other musicians drove him to invest himself in a full-on solo project. It was the era just before the end of apartheid and house music hadn't taken over yet. There wasn't instrumental electronic music yet in South Africa. As the '80s came to a close, that was about to change.

Professor Rhythm productions mirror the evolution of dance music in South Africa. They grew out of the bubblegum mold - which itself stems from band's channelling influences like Kool & the Gang and the Commodores - into something based on music for the club. His early instrumental recordings First Time Around and Professor 3 mostly distilled R&B, mbaqanga and bubblegum grooves into vocal-less pieces for the dance floor. Musically, these were a success and commercially the albums all went gold.

There were countless bubblegum albums flooding the marketplace, with nearly disposable vocalists backed by mostly similar-sounding rhythm tracks. Most of the lyrical content was light and apolitical. But the keyboards used formed the musical basis for what would come next. By the time Professor 4 and this recording Bafana Bafana - the name references South Africa's national soccer team - were released in the mid-1990s, k waito had fully emerged. Access to instruments and freedom of expression helped its rise in influence among youth.

According to Mdluli, "Once Mandela was released from prison and people felt more free to express themselves and move around town, kwaito was becoming the thing." Lyrically, kwaito championed the local township lingo while adapting "international music," house music, into the local context. "International Music," as house music and early kwaito were interchangeably known, in many ways reflects the sounds coming from America. But South Africans made it their own. Today, the largest part of the music industry is occupied by house music and its relatives.

Tracklisting:
1. Bafana Bafana
2. Isidakwa
3. Via Botswana
4. Leave Me Alone
5. Kancane Kancane
6. Release Me
7. Zama Zama
8. Don't Say You Love Me