A spiritual successor to 2011’s Music from Saharan Cellphones, 2022’s Music from Saharan WhatsApp feels less like a sequel than a signal flare from the dunes. Where the first compilation culled music from the memory cards of thumb-worn Nokias, this latest dispatch taps the communication du jour, gathering eleven obscurities as they flicker and forward across the digital ether.
Category: Sahel Sounds
Etran de L’Air :: Agadez
Endless energy courses through Agadez, the second album by Nigerian combo Etran de L’Air. It’s named for the city the band calls home, long an important center for the Tuareg people, a traditionally nomadic group that has produced some transcendent guitarists, including Tinariwen, Abdallah Oumbadougou, Mdou Moctar, and Les Filles de Illighadad. All electrify Tuareg stylings, fusing folk tradition with rock & roll sensibility.
Wau Wau Collectif :: Yaral Sa Doom
Uniting West African musicians, poets, and producers with Karl Jonas Winqvist, Wau Wau Collectif builds a cosmic jazz sound, weightless and joyful. And while it may feel tempting at times to describe this as “West African music,” it is in truth a trans-global work.
Mamman Sani Abdoulaye :: Kok Kok Kok
A delightful, hypnotic video clip of Saharan keyboardist Mamman Sani Abdoulaye has surfaced via Sahel Sounds’ YouTube Channel. An extract from a 2016 DVD, Sani presides over his double-decker setup […]
New Sounds / West Africa
“When the Europeans took blacks as slaves in the US, our ancestors brought their culture with them. They mixed their music with modern instruments, and created the blues, and that […]
Sahel Sounds :: Laila Je T’Aime
“Unlike the landscape, the people living in the Sahel are anything but homogenous. In every town is another language, culture, tradition, a demonstration of vastness of human complexity… so it […]