African imports

Over here in the West, everybody loves what middle class adults and liberal newspaper review columnists call ‘world music’. And nowadays, there’s a strong bond with contemporary youth, which is the right atmosphere for collaborations like THE VERY BEST to crop up. I remember a while back hearing Esau Mwamwaya singing over some popular tracks, then hearing he was hooking up with production team Radioclit. They later went big on the blog scene as The Very Best, probably due to Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig swooning about on one of their tracks.

But I’m a little surprised people are eating this up. It’s a little like the Ladysmith Black Mambazo popularity in the 80′s thanks to Paul Simon, or the middle class’ preoccupation with Peter Gabriel’s Real World, and WOMAD. Then now we have trendy DJ’s like Diplo and artists like MIA, but kids being kids, we want MORE. I was gonna put up some true bands from South Africa (BLK JKS) and Kenya (Extra Golden), but instead I’ll put up some summer-friendly tracks from Malawi (Esau Mwamwaya) and Mali (Amadou & Miriam). The latter is brand-spanking new, and features MIA for a little bit of a London-via-Sri Lanka swagga…and the former is from the last Amadou & Miriam album, and features Somalian rapper K’Naan. Nice:

“Rain Dance” (ft. MIA) – The Very Best (zshare)

“Africa” (ft. K’Naan) – Amadou & Miriam (zshare)