World Music Friday – African beats

Last week, there was a Brazilian flavour to things – this week, let’s head across the Atlantic and over to the Motherland.

African Beats

The first song reminds me of my childhood. It’s one of those songs that appeared out of nowhere and stuck. It wasn’t till Shakira updated the song that I decided to dig deeper and discovered that the song has a long history (first released in 1949) and hails from Cameroon. The song has long been associated with war – paying tribute to African skirmishers of world war II and later adopted as a marching song in Nigeria.

Moving onto something a little more modern, I wanted to use a song from the incredible group Tinariwen. The group hails from northern Mali – an area steeped in musical history with artists such as Salif Keita and Amadou & Mariam. Tinariwen are incredibly talented but also seek to draw attention to the problems in Mali involving the Tuareg and the Malian government.

This particular video reminds me of my travels in Morocco with one of my closest friends as we went from Marrakesh, over the Atlas mountains and into the Sahara desert.

A little gift courtesy of OkayAfrica:

Top ten African releases

Top Ten African videos

You’re welcome!

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