ESSENTIAL COLLECTIONS:
The Indestructible Beat of Africa

by Rob Brookman

It took former folkie Paul Simon, of all people, to wrest African pop music from the purview of the ethnographers and convince a notoriously conservative American listening public that the continent's myriad regional styles have a lot more in common with Stax and Motown than with National Geographic or Alan Lomax field recordings. However he managed the trick, the fact is that for musicians and fans alike, the handful of years following Graceland's 1987 release were a kind of Afro-pop golden age here in the States; artists like King Sunny Ade, Yossou N'Dour and Ladysmith Black Mambazo actually sold albums and filled concert halls, and labels big and small scurried to sign new faces and release the motherlode of outstanding recordings hiding in plain view just across the Atlantic.

But that golden age glittered a bit too brightly. Musicians who were once fortunate to perform outside their hometowns were soon being feted by adoring, well-heeled crowds in Paris, London and New York, recording in state-of-the-art studios with high-priced but unfamiliar studio pros, and struggling to conform music steeped in a sense of place and culture to the commercial and aesthetic demands of Western label bosses and audiences. Predictably, much African pop available in the West became vastly more professional and vastly less interesting (and was inexplicably renamed "world beat," perhaps reflecting the music's loss of anything resembling local flavor). New fans devoted to the music because of its fierceness, its complexity, its otherness, turned their attention elsewhere, while potential converts didn't find the watered-down, Peter Gabriel-endorsed version worthy of additional exploration. For Americans, at least, the golden age of African pop ended about as soon as it began, tapped out and tired.

The news isn't all bad, though. A decade-plus down the road, some African artists, like Ali Farka Toure, have abandoned the international spotlight to rededicate themselves to music-making on their native soil. Others, like Thomas Mapfumo (who I saw recently during a thrilling concert stop in Chicago), are finding new purpose and artistic energy in their opposition to official corruption and repression in their home nations. And for fans, the Internet's global reach is making it easier than ever to lay your hands on excellent but obscure African CDs that don't warrant shelf space at your local Tower Records.

That said, here are 10 milestones in African pop, plus alternates, that should provide casual fans and novices alike with a tantalizing snapshot of the African pop diaspora. If any of this floats your boat, don't stop here. A continent's worth of great music awaits.

1. Franco and Rochereau: Omona Wapi (Shanachie) Not only one of the top African pop releases I've heard, an unmitigated popular music classic, period. A collaboration between two of the deans of African music, it's distinguished by astonishing vocals, chiming, writhing guitar work, and beats that manage not to get lost in the collective beauty. The style is soukous, which originated in Zaire and remains somewhat popular in Africa and Europe. Rubber Ball by Loketo (also on Shanachie) and Papa Wemba's recent M'zee Foula-Ngenge (Sonodisc import) are in the same style and are also recommended.

2. Various Artists: Indestructible Beat of Soweto (Shanachie) Paul Simon heard a version of this in the early 80s and Graceland resulted. It's easy to find, and to listen to. It's mainly mbaqanga, South African Township music, which, in this incarnation stays within earshot of its Zulu tribal roots while sounding thoroughly contemporary. Certainly as culturally important as socially aware as our homespun source of black music expression, the blues. Also recommended: The whole Indestructible series (on Earthworks) is remarkably consistent, as is Dark Sisters and Flying Jazz Queens and Mzwakhe Mbuli's Resistance Is Defense (both also Earthworks)

3. Mahlathini and Mahotella Queens: Paris-Soweto (Polydor) This was a great ensemble until Mahlathini's death this year, and this is their best record, released here on the heels of their Graceland and Indestructible fame. Again, mbaqanga. Makgona Tsohle, the Queens and West Nkosi's band provide stellar back-up that's full of great hooks and outstanding vocals. Yes, there's even a collaboration with Art of Noise.

4. Various Artists: Guitar Paradise of East Africa (Earthworks) Composed mainly of tracks recorded in Nairobi performed by Kenyan musicians, this stuff has its roots in benga, another popular musical style that derives from the rhumba. This 1991 collection was hand-picked by the unerring Trevor Herman and, as the title suggests, the old six-string dominates the proceeding here. And does it ever - the beats are propulsive and fierce and totally unrelenting. Unlike their counterparts in America and Europe, however, "guitar god" syndrome is conspicuously absent among the players here. Maybe that's because these guys get paid for keeping people on the dance floor.

5. King Sunny Ade: Juju Music (Mango) Ade is one of the most popular - perhaps the most popular - cultural figure in his native Nigeria. And, like Thomas Mapfumo in Zimbabwe, is primarily responsible for the dissemination of his style of music in the West. Juju is a rhythmically challenging, almost entrancing style, and, at their best, Ade's stellar band create not so much as a groove as an infectious head trip. Also recommended: Ade's Aura, Synchro System and 1998's Odu..

6. Various Artists: African Connection Volume One - Zaire Choc! (Celluloid Import) It took the Internet to help me finally put my hands on this gem, and it was worth the wait. These songs came out of the Paris club scene, where people at one time actually danced to guitar music that hadn't been put through a sequencer. At least that's what I gather from this collection. Papa Wemba and Sam Mangwana, two favorite of mine from other releases, are among the contributors.

7. Various Artists: Africa Dances (Original Music) An early African compilation, this features Afro-pop in its infancy - mainly from the 50s and 60s, which many consider the music's golden years. Like all Original Music releases, the poor sound quality is a little off-putting at first, but fight the temptation to consider it a historical document. This stuff was made for dancing. Sadly, Original Music is reported to have folded; before its catalog fades into the mists, seek out this, along with other O.M. compilations including The Kampala Sound, Heavy on the Highlife! and Do Better If You Can.

8. Thomas Mapfumo: Chimurenga Forever - The Best Of (Hemisphere) Known as the "Lion of Zimbabwe," Mapfumo is known for his Chimurenga music, which translates loosely as "songs of struggle." By transposing the rhythms of the thumb piano, or mbira, to the electric guitar, Mapfumo combined the sound and texture of his native music with Western pop. The result? Songs with a texture that rocks and rolls at the same time, while transcending politics, race and even culture. Also recommended: Mapfumo's Ndangariro and three Earthworks compilations of Zimbabwe pop entitled Zimbabwe Frontline.

9. Various Artists: The Music In My Head (Stern's Africa) Compared to South African mbaqanga or Nigerian highlife, most West African playing once seemed to my ears too loose, too rangy, too much like milquetoast , WOMAD-style world music embraced by perpetual disappointment Youssou N'Dour. This comp, though, sets the record straight. I give credit to the aesthetic singlemindedness of Mark Hudson, who complied the record as a soundtrack for his novel of the same name. That singlemindedness, whether on purpose or by chance, results here in a cohesive, powerful groove and a raw exuberance from start to finish that's homogenized out of much of the Senegalese music prepared for Western ears. The result is seamless flow under and around which unknowns like Etoile 2000 and Gestu de Dakar bump, churn, blare and more than hold their own against N'Dour's star power, and newer material arises almost imperceptibly from significantly older tracks. Also recommended: Volumes 1 and 2 of re-released recordings by N'Dour's remarkable first band, Etoile de Dakar (on Stern's Africa).

10. Ali Farka Toure: Niafunke (Hannibal) From Pete Gorman's review of this album in his "Top 10 of 1999": "Some say that Africa is the home of rock and roll, but if it was born there it still spent its formative years in America, and it is to the American blues that Toure goes for his root chords. The main influence is John Lee Hooker, but with a difference; Toure mixes things up in a way that Hooker never would. Hooker found a groove half a century ago and stuck to it, while Toure lets the music take him where it wants to go. The lyrics are in something other than English, and it may be just as well. With music this good the lyrics could only get in the way. Maybe out there was an album recorded last year that I didn't hear and would have preferred to this one, perhaps recorded in Nigeria, or in Mozambique or Senegal, but I'm fairly confident that it didn't come out of New York or Minneapolis or Seattle. Haunting, beautiful, etc." Also recommended: Segou by Toure prot"gé Lgé Lobi Traore.