Afropop Worldwide Folgen

The massive Niger River Delta is a fantastically rich cultural region and ecosystem. Unfortunately, it has been laid low by the brutal Biafran War (1967-70) and by decades of destructive and mismanaged oil exploration. This program offers a portrait of the region in two stories. First, we chronicle the Biafran War through the timeless highlife music of Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, perhaps the most popular musician in Nigeria at the time. Then we spend time with contemporary musical activists in Port Harcourt’s waterfront communities and in oil-ravaged Ogoniland to hear how music is providing hope for these profoundly challenged communities. The program features new and classic music, the words of Nigerian scholars, musicians, activists and veterans of the Biafran War, concluding with an inspiring live highlife concert on the Port Harcourt waterfront in which rappers and highlife graybeards come together to imagine a better road ahead. Produced by Banning Eyre.

The guitar music of Africa is eternal! Despite the rise of Afrobeats, Afro-house, hip-hop and techno, the continent still turns out inventive and thrilling string pickers. This music-rich program features shredding desert-rock axemen and filigree griot guitarists from Niger and Mali, as well as new sounds from the Congo, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. We’ll also travel to rural Botswana to meet itinerant guitarists who have gained a worldwide following through eye- and ear-popping YouTube videos. Some of their new music is now out on a unique compilation called I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits. We’ll hear the sweet, raw sounds and their surprising stories, and discover a whole new way of playing the world’s most versatile string instrument.

This spring, Afropop returned to Fes, Morocco, for the 23rd annual World Sacred Music Festival, a sumptuous spread of music from across the globe that blurs the boundaries of what is sacred. Interwoven with Morocco’s ornate history and fertile fabric of daily life is a mosaic of many musics: Gnawa, Arabic pop, Amazigh ahwach, classical Andalusian, Issaoua, raï, rap, chaabi, jazz, metal and so much more. At the World Sacred Music Festival, we heard many of these sounds, as well as those of international artists from China to Mali to Kuwait. Join us as we revisit these concerts—the late night music of Sufi brotherhoods, Moroccan fusion with Taziri and Inouraz, traditional Kuwaiti pearl diving music with Salman El Ammari, a stunning bit of Mali-Spain fusion with Toumani Diabate and Ketama, and more. Beyond the festival, we sit in with a respected Gnawa mâalem in Rabat and sample the array of tunes heard in cars, shops and CD stores around Fes.