For the diaspora folks in Washington DC, if Jay-Z makes you ‘get that dirt off your shoulder’, if you like John Legend, Youssou Ndour, Alek Wek, Tyson Beckford and other gorgeous African stars, check out the Africa Rising concert at the Kennedy center.

Enjoy…

Vieux Farka Toure is the son of Ali Farka Toure, famed Malian musician who passed away last year. We were all sad to hear of his passing; Jke had a tribute to AFT. Malian music, especially the likes of AFT and Toumani diabate have always left an indelible impression to most who’ve heard it. It definitely did for me in 2005 when i wrote this post.
As the universe works in wonderful ways…Vieux Farka Toure is carrying on the legacy of his father’s desert blues without missing a beat.

I arrived a little late to the concert so i missed about half of Vieux’s set, though from the 3 songs i heard, the man is indeed a sensation. The blues rag says of him… “Mali has a new guitar god, and his name is Vieux Farka Toure”. I quite agree. Listening to him play was special. He is hyper skilled on guitar. That is the simplest way i can put it without resorting to phrases like “Oh my god he was. like. totally. amazing!”.

Click on the image below for the set of photographs i took. I also twittered it a bit.

Toumani Diabate is a grammy award winning Kora player whose discography you can browse on Afropop.
He is the gentleman with the Kora in this picture.

He had reunited with Ali Farka Toure before AFT passed away and had played together in the highly acclaimed CD ‘In the Heart of the Moon’.
He took a break during the performance and explained that he is from 71 generations of griots He also pointed out the Kora, which is a 21 string instrument, made of fishing wire, calabash and antelope skin. He played with 4 Chicago jazz musicians, melding the polyphonic sounds with the jazzy in such a beautiful mashup. Its a shame the concert wasn’t streamed, it was probably recorded though, so it might show up on the world music circuit soon. I was rapt in the music the whole time, it was very cool.
Music to share (For a limited time – I will take them down in a week):
Toumani
Boulevard De’ Independance

Very short Video clip:
Lead singer of Symmetric orchestra gracefully entering the stage

The remaining tour dates for Vieux:
Jul 15 2007 Old Town School Folk Music Fest, Chicago, Illinois
Jul 16 2007 TRAVEL to CA/ Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, California
Jul 18 2007 Nuits d’Afrique Festival, Montreal, Quebec
Jul 19 2007 Grassroots Festival, Trumansburg, New York
Jul 20 2007 Institute of the Arts, Detroit, Michigan
Jul 21 2007 W. Kortwright Center, E. Meredith, New York
Jul 23 2007 Newport Towers, Jersey City, New Jersey
Jul 24 2007 Grace Building, New York, New York
Jul 25 2007 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Jul 26 2007 Strand Theater, Rockland, Maine
Jul 29 2007 Hillside Festival , Guelph, Ontario
Aug 3 2007 Providence Parks, Providence, Rhode Island
Aug 9 2007 Skirball Center, Los Angeles, California
Aug 10 2007 Grand Performances, Los Angeles, California
Aug 10 2007 Temple Bar, Los Angeles, California
Aug 11 2007 TRAVEL to Canada/Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta
Aug 12 2007 Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta
Aug 18 2007 ONE WORLD InnerNational Music Celebration, Horseshoe, North Carolina

Remaining tour dates for Toumani Diabate
Jul 14 2007 8:00P Vancouver Folk Festival, Vancouver
Jul 15 2007 8:00P World Festival, Grass Valley, California
Jul 16 2007 8:00P Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California
Jul 18 2007 8:00P Hudson Festival, New York, New York
Jul 19 2007 8:00P BAM Festival, New York, New York
Jul 20 2007 8:00P New Mexico Jazz Festival, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Jul 21 2007 8:00P New Mexico Jazz Festival, Albuquerque, New Mexico

For other african artists touring please click here. (Thanks Mweshi for the link).

The African renaissance has a soundtrack playing globally. Enjoy!

The line up in SA includes:

Angelique Kidjo

Vusi Mahlasela

Zola

Joss Stone

UB 40

Baaba Mal

The Parlotones

For American fare, its on the Bravo channel.

Live Earth’s theme is SOS – Save Our Selves. The success of such Live 8 type concerts is debatable, but for a world music lover…i am bobbing my head and soaking in all the music.

See what Dan Deluca at Pop Matters has to say about Live Earth…gem of the day IMO, climate change and Nelly in one paragraph!

…Live Earth will include concerts on every principal land mass on the planet, including Antarctica (the ninth site), where a low-down house band of British scientists called Nunatak will no doubt prove themselves to be a bunch of supremely chill dudes.

Which all sounds pretty cool. But Live Earth – subtitled the Concerts for a Climate in Crisis – exists, of course, to highlight the opposite.

Namely, that it�??s getting hot in herre – though, for some reason, Nelly is not on the list of performers. And that, as Gore�??s Oscar-winning documentary, �??An Inconvenient Truth,�?� argues, global warming – or if you prefer, climate change – is leading the planet to all but certain environmental disaster.

The CD i blogged about here awhile ago is now available for sale on CD Baby

There is a 20% discount if you buy two CD’s or more. You can also preview all the songs before you buy. Its a very nice CD, I am sure you wont regret buying it.

For valentines you can play ‘Nakupenda‘ for that special someone..hint hint and for anti – valentinos- perhaps you can play ‘kinyangunya‘?

Youssou N’Dour, Angelique Kidjo, the United Nations Foundation, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and other project partners premiered the powerful film “Africa Live: The Roll Back Malaria Concert” at the United Nations Wednesday evening March 29th. The film features rousing performances a year ago in Dakar Senegal by an all star Afropop lineup–Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Seun Kuti (son of Fela) with Egypt 80 and guest artists Tony Allen and Manu Dibango, Tinariwen, Corneille, Tiken Jah Fakoly with fearless Senegalese rapper Didier Awadi.

PBS will air the film on thursday April 6th at 8pm. check out www.pbs.org for information.
Watch/listen to the segment ‘Fighting Malaria in Africa’, there is also a transcipt from the show that aired in January.

Mshairi and JKE, i think u will enjoy it!

Aside: Who remembers the episode of Family Guy where Peter or Brian makes a reference to Lady Smith Black Mambazo?

Zach Niles mentioned that when reporting or speaking about war, not much attention is paid to the effects of war on people’s pysche. He pointed to the fact that music – the universal language is a very important form of dealing with the ravages of war.

For documentary details please click here
For CD by Refugee All Stars, click here While you are at CD baby, if you do not have a copy of Eric Wainana’s CD, its also available. [Eric Wainaina is one of the pre-eminent musicians in Kenya, to me his music is synonymous with the art of kenyan democracy].