{"id":6633,"date":"2014-08-12T15:28:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T15:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/?p=6633"},"modified":"2016-02-29T23:31:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T23:31:48","slug":"afro-cosmic-club-3-mixtape-dj-gioumanne-hosted-okayafrica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/afro-cosmic-club-3-mixtape-dj-gioumanne-hosted-okayafrica\/","title":{"rendered":"Afro Cosmic Club 3 mixtape by Dj Gioumanne, hosted by Okayafrica"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefader.com\/2014\/02\/06\/download-dj-gioumannes-afro-cosmic-club-volume-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">volume 2<\/a> which was played over 15,000 times since Fader Magazine published it, dj Gioumanne&#8217;s latest instalment is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.okayafrica.com\/news\/african-hip-hop-mixtape-dj-gioumanne\/\" target=\"_blank\">hosted by Okayafrica<\/a> in their Africa in your Earbuds series.<\/p>\n<p>Highlights in this one-hour mix include Kenyan disco legend Kelly Brown&#8217;s first single, Tabu Ley&#8217;s experimental mid 80s boogie-rumba crossover, an understated mbira jam by Kwaku Dadey, a lost Zamrock recording by Tanzanian band Sunburst, the Grace Jones of Ivory Coast and a Azymuth style Italian soundtrack. Read the liner notes below, full of little facts about an era in Africa&#8217;s recent musical past that has gone ignored for long.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"450\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/249560281&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tracklist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mac Gregor \u2013 Nan ye li kan<br \/>\nWally Badarou \u2013 He was a rasta in London town<br \/>\nTumblack \u2013 Chunga Funk<br \/>\nM\u2019bamina \u2013 Kilowi-Kilowi<br \/>\nUjamaa \u2013 Pokea<br \/>\nUnique \u2013 Business<br \/>\nSeigneur Tabu Ley Rochereau \u2013 Haffi deo<br \/>\nErrol de la Fuente \u2013 Happines<br \/>\nJobby Valente \u2013 Coup de main<br \/>\nHenri Guedon \u2013 22 Mai Delivrance<br \/>\nLucky Zebila \u2013 Eh la moto!<br \/>\nKyeremateng Stars \u2013 Beema se hmm<br \/>\nKwaku Dadey \u2013 Twin cities<br \/>\nF Micalizzi \u2013 Hear it tonight<br \/>\nDama Damawuzan \u2013 Misiqui<br \/>\nUncle Joe\u2019s Afri-beat \u2013 Onua<br \/>\nKantata \u2013 Monsom<br \/>\nKelly Brown Family \u2013 We need each other<br \/>\nRay Lema \u2013 Dansometer<br \/>\nBobongo Stars \u2013 Simba moto<br \/>\nSunburst \u2013 Ukuti Ukuti<br \/>\nAlex Sambat \u2013 Black<br \/>\nGroup NSI \u2013 Gad\u00e9 sa ki ka pass\u00e9 dote kote<br \/>\nJulien Babinga \u2013 Mbongui Percussions<br \/>\nAli &amp; Tam\u2019s avec l\u2019Orchestre Malo \u2013 Malo<br \/>\nAbyssia \u2013 Risin\u2019<br \/>\nPercussions and Company \u2013 Infernal round<br \/>\nFuzz \u2013 Disco-tunga<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liner Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mac Gregor \u2013 Nan ye li kan<\/strong><br \/>\nThe obscure mid 80s lp <em>Abidjan<\/em> by Mac Gregor is probably the closest we\u2019ll come to hearing an African Grace Jones. The female singer from Ivory Coast released an album which may have presented the avant garde of the Abidjan scene at the time, merging slap bass disco, sophisticated synth riffs and the uber-cool vocals courtesy of Mac. Ivory Coast seems to have been the only country that picked up a bit of the post-punk or disco-not-disco sound; the first release of Codek \u2013 Tam Tam (a.k.a. Tim Toum), a cosmic disco classic, was on West African Music, a small label from Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wally Badarou \u2013 He was a rasta in London town<\/strong><br \/>\nThe producer and keyboard player from Benin via France, UK and the Bahamas will forever be a part of recent African pop history for his <em>Echoes<\/em> album which was a big hit in West Africa in the mid 80s. Its predecessor, Wally\u2019s debut lp <em>Back To Scales To-Night<\/em>, never reached that status, but it\u2019s still worth seeking out for several big tunes (also see <em>Afro Cosmic Club volume 2<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tumblack \u2013 Chunga Funk<\/strong><br \/>\nIn the 1970s and 80s there were a number of European groups that created a sound based on African and Caribbean percussion mixed with disco and funk influences. The \u2018Burundi black\u2019 single from 1971 is a good example; the artist Burundi Steiphenson Black was really a pseudonym for French producer Michel Bernholc, and he actually sampled a live recording of Burundi drumming from 1967. Tumblack played their own music though and the album was created by a \u2018who\u2019s who\u2019 of the French electronic scene, including Slim Pezin who was behind a couple of essential African-French disco-funk albums such as Congolese singer Abeti Masikini\u2019s 1977 LPs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>M\u2019bamina \u2013 Kilowi-Kilowi<\/strong><br \/>\nA group formed in Italy in the early 70s by artists from Benin, Zaire, Italy and Cameroon, M\u2019bamina grew an international following in the nearly 15 years they existed. The lp \u2018Reflexion\u2019 from 1982 was released on Paco Rabanne\u2019s label, where they were joined by a diverse bunch of forward thinking artists from all over Africa and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ujamaa \u2013 Pokea<\/strong><br \/>\nCongolese artist So Kalmery released his first music in Europe with his band Ujamaa. The lp <em>Africa man<\/em> was a blueprint for his later work. The lp would probably be filed under reggae but as you can hear, Ujamaa was also among the first non-Nigerian bands to try their hand at Afrobeat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Unique \u2013 Business<\/strong><br \/>\nMulticultural band from Germany based around Ghanaian singer Alan Cosmos (or Kosmos). Their only album <em>Sankofa<\/em> is a tough find. The sound is a bit more towards funk and soul than Alan Kosmos\u2019 later work which steered towards highlife. With German musician \u2018Graf\u2019 Toeteberg who later became a pillar in the Senegalese hip hop scene.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seigneur Tabu Ley Rochereau \u2013 Haffi deo<\/strong><br \/>\nTabu Ley, who sadly passed away in November last year, is often remembered for his massive legacy in Congolese rumba. Scattered among his discography which spans over 100 albums (or 250, according to other sources) is a handful of tunes that sounds quite different from the usual rumba. The title track of his 1985 album \u201cHaffi deo\u201d is a daring crossover to a smoother boogie funk sound. UK based label Soundway is reissuing this track in August on a 12 inch (misspelled \u201cHafi deo,\u201d if you want to Google it).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Errol de la Fuente \u2013 Happines<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile working on a compilation of music from the South American country (and former Dutch colony) of Surinam for Dutch-based record label Rush Hour \/ Kindred Spirits, I came across many small label releases, 7 inches that were often distributed via small stores or by the artists themselves. Errol de la Fuente recorded two singles with composer Ruben Sno. This song was most likely passed on at the time, as the audience was demanding slow soul ballads rather than uptempo disco-boogie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jobby Valente \u2013 Coup de main<\/strong><br \/>\nJobby is known to Prince fans around the world as the champagne lady in the movie <em>Under the cherry moon<\/em> (1986). But she\u2019s also an accomplished singer and activist from the French Antilles island of Martinique whose record <em>Tema<\/em> (1981) features this big disco-biguine crossover tune.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Henri Guedon \u2013 22 Mai Delivrance<\/strong><br \/>\nArtist from the French Antilles with many classics to his name, including the big latin jazz record <em>Cosmozouk percussion<\/em>, released an innovative percussion based record \u2018Retour\u2019 in 1981. With sparse vocals and unusual musical instruments mixed in, Guedon created a sound that can compete with modern studio productions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lucky Zebila \u2013 Eh la moto!<\/strong><br \/>\nArtist from Congo-Brazza who built a career as a choreographer of African dance in France and who released a record with his ensemble Ses Rythmes De Base. They decided to use a Fender Rhodes on some of the songs which works well for us. Lucky can also be heard on <em>Interpretation Of The Original Rhythm<\/em>, a afrojazz album by Ray Stephen Oche which was reissued in 2011.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kyeremateng Stars \u2013 Beema se hmm<\/strong><br \/>\nThe band behind Kyeremateng Atwede had some serious highlife classics to their name, recorded mostly in the 70s and early 80s. In 1986 they released an LP on a small Dutch label which contained a rework of their \u201cMaye Obi Den\u201d (the original version can be heard on the Sofrito Tropical Discotheque compilation) and this tune with its infectious disco bass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kwaku Dadey \u2013 Twin cities<\/strong><br \/>\nI bumped into the <em>Heritage II<\/em> LP while looking for a totally different record, and since the artwork looked interesting I decided to give it a listen. Like many albums recorded by Ghanaian musicians abroad during the 80s, this one has several interesting fusions of highlife, pop and funk. For some reason it\u2019s gone under the radar and OG copies at the time of writing can still be found in mint condition for under 10$ \u2013 while many worthwhile OG African records from the 1970s and 80s have become unaffordable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Franco Micalizzi \u2013 Hear it tonight<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2018Vier F\u00e4uste Gegen Rio\u2019 or \u2018Non C\u2019E\u2019 Due Senza Quattro\u2019 was a 1984 Italian film starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, in English known as \u2018Double Trouble\u2019. The soundtrack was released in Switzerland under the German name, and features Brazilian-inspired music by Italian soundtrack legend Franco Micalizzi who somehow managed to bridge between Italian soundtrack lounge, Brazil bossa and the Azymuth 80s sound, and US boogie-funk groove.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dama Damawuzan \u2013 Misiqui<\/strong><br \/>\nArtist from Togo, heavily inspired by James Brown-era funk and soul but with a strong local sound. Most of his records are sought after. This late 80s 12 inch \u2013 still under the radar \u2013 was apparently a promo for Banque internationale pour l\u2019Afrique occidentale (BIAO) and the b-side develops in interesting ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Uncle Joe\u2019s Afri-beat \u2013 Onua<\/strong><br \/>\nIn the 1980s, Uncle Joe lived in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost (the Bijlmer area), which until today is home to a large Ghanaian community. His album <em>Owo Odo<\/em> was recorded in Ghana and in the Netherlands and features the legendary Kiki Gyan (here spelled \u2018Djan\u2019) on bass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kantata \u2013 Monsom<\/strong><br \/>\nTogether with fellow Ghanaian George Darko, the Germany based group Kantata have been at the start of burger highlife, the music played by Ghanaian immigrants in Europe \u2013 its name based on the city of Hamburg, not the snack \u2013 which often borrowed from other genres than highlife, including funk, soul and pop. \u2018Monsom\u2019 is from what appears to be their debut lp, the rare <em>It\u2019s High Time Now<\/em>. Some of the songs on the album were repackaged and sold in the US and France, and their next album was for French-American record abel Celluloid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kelly Brown Family \u2013 We need each other<\/strong><br \/>\nKelly Brown (real name: Abdulkadir Mohammed Ali Bux) was a Kenyan musician born on the coast who from the early 70s spent time between Germany and Kenya, recording and releasing music in both countries. This is possibly his first release, a private-press 7 inch (I have only ever seen promo copies with a hand-written label) with a song apparently inspired by the latin funk song \u201cWoman\u201d by Barrabas (1972). Later output by Kelly Brown is mostly disco and pop. He was found dead in Germany in 1989, and though the circumstances surrounding his death have never been cleared it was suggested that he was murdered.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ray Lema \u2013 Dansometer<\/strong><br \/>\nRay Lema should be counted among the giants of Congolese music, yet he\u2019s not as widely know as the rumba and soukous artists from his generation. His respectable discography includes releases on Mango (a sublabel of Island records) and on Celluloid, where he released the electronic\/wave fuelled \u201cMedecine\u201d featuring Tony Allen and M\u2019bamina, from which the single \u201cDansometer\u201d was taken.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bobongo Stars \u2013 Simba moto<\/strong><br \/>\nBobongo Stars second album <em>Makasi<\/em> (1984) was released on Celluloid and like most African artists on the label at the time, their music crossed over from African pop into electronic wave. \u201cSimba moto\u201d is one of those songs that made a name on the 1980s Italian Afro scene and it\u2019s featured on many a deejay\u2019s favourite list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunburst \u2013 Ukuti Ukuti<\/strong><br \/>\nTanzanian band Sunburst were among the most innovative of their time (1970s), and at some point they won a contest for best band of the country, were invited to Mozambique for the independence celebrations, toured Swaziland and temporarily relocated to Zambia where they had their own weekly live tv show on national television (at a time there was no television at all in their home country, except on the islands of Zanzibar). Their brand of music was a unique fusion of many styles, including Tanzanian coastal music, soul, funk, jazz and Zamrock. As I am working with the band to re-release their music, I finally got hold of their rarer-than-hens-teeth full album, recorded in Zambia in the mid-seventies. The anecdotes the band members told me are genuinely mind-blowing \u2013 for example, one of their compositions was covered \u2013 uncredited \u2013 and released by Japanese jazz legend Sadao Watanabe and played by a allstar cast of American jazz greats including George Benson, Eric Gale and Dave Grusin (it\u2019s the song <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XSum_POEVrU\" target=\"_blank\">Bagamoyo-Zanzibar<\/a> from his 1981 album <em>Orange Express<\/em>)!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alex Sambat \u2013 Black<\/strong><br \/>\nPolitics in Gabon seems interwoven with musicianship \u2013 the First Lady of Gabon between 1967 and 1988 was Patience Dabany who was one of the biggest female singers out of Francophone Africa; her son with president Omar Bongo recorded a solo album in the late 70s with James Brown\u2019s backing band, and when the son \u2013 Alain Bongo \u2013 ran for president in 2009 he used music as one of the shortcuts to the hearts of Gabonese youth.<br \/>\nAnother member of the Bongo government, Alexandre Sambat, also tried his hands at music in the 1980s. His lp <em>Bel Gwadloup<\/em> from the mid 1980s has a serious line-up of musicians from the African and Caribbean French scene including Jocelyne Beroard (Kassav) and Pierre Akendengue on vocals, and fellow Gabonese Jean-Yves Messan on percussion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group NSI \u2013 Gad\u00e9 sa ki ka pass\u00e9 dote kote<\/strong><br \/>\nJacob Desvarieux from Kassav\u2019 has many claims to fame and NSI was one of those ventures that show that he had a more funky side than the digital pop-souk that he got known for later in the decade. <em>New sounds from the islands<\/em> is a collage of proto-zouk and this track which leans towards the disco side of things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julien Babinga \u2013 Mbongui Percussions<\/strong><br \/>\nThe albums released by Congolese dance teacher Julien Babinga in 1980s France look like they are full-on traditional percussion, but if you were to dismiss them you\u2019d pass up on a couple of polyrhythmic electronic grooves which sound as if they were made for today\u2019s dance floors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ali &amp; Tam\u2019s avec l\u2019Orchestre Malo \u2013 Malo<\/strong><br \/>\nSwiss record label Plainisphare released a number of African albums in the mid 80s by unknown Congolese groups. The self-titled lp by Ali &amp; Tam\u2019s and Orchestre Malo has a unique sound; it\u2019s like a soul\/funk\/jazz album with a crossover to Congolese rumba, played in \u2018unplugged\u2019 style and I have never heard anything similar coming from Congo, though the 1978 album by Les Ya Toupas Du Zaire comes close. Ali &amp; Tam\u2019s were Aly Sow Baidy and Tamisimbi Mpungu, both teaching at the Institut National Des Arts du Zaire (INA).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abyssia \u2013 Risin\u2019<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom a obscure LP called Gwekana by a group of musicians from various origins, based in France. With Vicky Edimo who by now is known to be among the most funky bass players from the African continent \u2013 he was also the producer behind the Afro cosmic grail \u2018Look up in the sky\u2019 by Cameroon-born child prodigy Francis \u2018the Great\u2019 Mbarga.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Percussions and Company \u2013 Infernal round<\/strong><br \/>\nAn instrumental from the French library records series Tele Music, with Pierre Alain Dahan, Marc Chanterau and Slim Pezin (Arpadys) who were the guys behind Tumblack.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fuzz \u2013 Disco-tunga<\/strong><br \/>\nAshok Records was a small record label in Amsterdam that released music from artists in the Surinamese and African community in the Netherlands. Their biggest achievement is probably \u201cSoul on fire,\u201d a single recorded in Holland by Del Richardson, a member of 70s Ghanaian\/British afro-pop band Osibisa. Fuzz is a somewhat enigmatic band but they released two singles on Ashok; one that is a cross-over of Surinam kaseko music and dirty synth funk, and this one which has a soul track on one side, and \u2018Disco tunga\u2019 which seems to borrow from Brazilian music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our mixtape series focusing on forgotten and undiscovered 80s Afro grooves is now three volumes deep. Afro Cosmic Club brings uptempo grooves from early- to mid-1980s urban Africa and the Afro-European diaspora, with a few Caribbean rarities thrown in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,467],"tags":[36,140,287,436,494],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}