Afropop Worldwide Folgen

As Afropop Worldwide marks the week of its 30th anniversary on the public airwaves, we take a look at the story that led up to the program’s creation. We hear excerpts from the podcast A Show of Hearts profiling the program’s founders Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre. And host Georges Collinet recalls his audition for the job that has shaped three decades of his storied life. And of course, we will hear highlights from the music that has made Afropop Worldwide one of the longest running music programs in public radio history.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would be 79 years old this month, had he not died from complications of AIDS in 1997. By the time of his death, Fela was the inventor of the enduring and influential Afrobeat music style, the composer of an enormous body of music, and one of the bravest political voices in 20th century African music. It is fair to say that no African musician before or since has sacrificed more for the principles he believed in. Nigerian history and music have barreled forth during the two decades since Fela left us. A powerful new generation of Nigerian musicians have emerged in that time, and the music they now champion has been dubbed “Afrobeats,” an appropriation of the name Fela gave his original sound during its heyday. The youngest artists on the scene today have no direct memory of Fela, though his legacy is impossible to escape. In this program, we hear from current day Nigerians from multiple generations and genres—fuji, juju, hip-hop (Afrobeats) and highlife—on how they remember this musical giant, and how they reckon with his complex and challenging legacy. Produced by Banning Eyre and Morgan Greenstreet. Hosted by Sahr Ngaujah. APWW #764

Gael Faye is a musician and best-selling author, born in Burundi and living in France. In this podcast, Elodie Maillot introduces Faye’s music and breakthrough book Petit Pays (Small Country). Faye speaks about his precarious life as an exile, and about the growing community of Afropean artists in France. Faye now spends a lot of time in Rwanda, and reports on the growing impact of diaspora artists like himself, Congolese rapper Baloji and the Belgian-Rwandan singer Stromae and others are having in Africa, where they now mount major tours. Maillot updates the story of Africa’s artistic European diaspora with surprising and moving developments. Produced by Elodie Maillot and Nina Pareja