Afropop Worldwide Folgen

The first time Puerto Rican bandleader Willie Rosario heard the word salsa applied to the Cuban-style music he played was in Venezuela, where DJ Phidias Danilo first popularized it. Subsequently applied as a marketing tool by Fania Records in New York, the word quickly became a marker of Puerto Rican identity. This 1995 production talks to the founding bandleaders of the genre -- Rafael Ithier (El Gran Combo), Quique Lucca (Sonora Ponceña), and Willie Rosario -- and presents immortal hits of early Puerto Rican salsa. Produced by Ned Sublette with José Mandry. [APWW #207]

In 2019, Afropop Worldwide hosted a stage at South by Southwest in Austin, TX, for the first time. Our lineup featured innovative new sounds out of Africa, including Jojo Abot from Ghana, Adekunle Gold from Nigeria, groundbreaking DJ AfrotroniX, Sauti Sol from Kenya and more. In this episode, we meet the artists, sample their sets, and take in the growing presence of African music at America’s most essential pop music expo. The start of a fine tradition! Produced by Banning Eyre. [APWW #801] [Originally aired in 2019]

Producer Morgan Greenstreet follows the trail of West African Vaudou spiritual music to a very unlikely place–Utrecht, Netherlands–for the first edition of the Voodoo To Go Festival. The three-day festival, pioneered by Togolese entrepreneur Leopold Ekué Messan, set out to demystify Vaudou/Vodun/Voodoo spiritual practices by featuring music and dance from Togo, Benin, Haiti, Cuba and Suriname and bringing people together for films, food and a panel discussion about “Good and Evil in Voodoo.” From the opening ceremony, to the climactic final moments of the festival, the music at Voodoo To Go was filled with the spirit: Trance-inducing traditional music from Togolese/Beninois diaspora group Djogbé; heavy, retro Vaudou funk from Togolese musician Peter Solo and Vaudou Game, based in Lyon, France; Surinamese Kawina music from Rotterdam-based dance band Dray-ston; Late-night Haitian Vaudou-jazz from Erol Josué; and, finally an intense collaboration between Cuban jazz maestro Omar Sosa and Togolese musician and dancer Ayaovi Kokoussé. Alongside the excellent music, we hear from various participants in the festival discussing what Voodoo means to them: a Winti priestess; fascinated Dutch music fans; and, of course, the musicians who make music inspired by the spirit. [APWW # 717] [Originally aired in 2014]