May 30, 2017

Alemayehu Eshete | Philophon single

ARTIST: Alemayehu Eshete
TITLE: “Alteleyeshegnem” / “Temar Ledje”
LABEL: Philophon
Worldwide appreciation of the brilliant music made in Ethiopia in the 1960s and 70s got its first traction in 1997 from Francis Falceto’s Ethiopiques reissue series.

Rafiki Jazz | Har Dam Sahara

ARTIST: Rafiki Jazz
TITLE: Har Dam Sahara
LABEL: Riverboat
Rafiki Jazz is an octet from Sheffield, England with a decidedly global outlook: members hail from six countries on four continents. You won’t find a lot of bands that feature oud, kora, steelpan, tabla and berimbau.

Omar Souleyman | To Syria, With Love

ARTIST: Omar Souleyman
TITLE: To Syria, With Love
LABEL: Mad Decent
Electronic dabke singer Omar Souleyman is back with his third studio album in four years. This is his ninth full-length USA-European release since 2007, not to mention the over 500 cassettes on the market in Syria.

Program May 31, 2017

Not a lot of bands are together through five decades.  Even fewer take a 14-year break, then come back sounding as good as when they started.  And ones that lay off for an additional 10 years, then make a second triumphant return?  Now we're down to only one band: Senegal's Orchestra Baobab (pictured above).

The superstars of salsa Senegalais are back -- their new album A Tribute To Ndiouga Dieng was released last month, and they're touring Europe again this summer.  It's a perfect time for a Baobab retrospective: four tracks from four different decades, this week on Global A Go-Go.

Also this week: new albums by Rafiki Jazz and Omar Souleyman, veteran Ethiopian singers Alemayehu Eshete and Girma Beyene are back, and Colombian fandango meets Trinidadian calypso.

May 28, 2017

Charts May 28, 2017

WRIR's World Music Top Ten
1 Juana Molina | Halo | Crammed
2 various artists | Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984 | Analog Africa
3 Fruko Y Sus Tesos | Tesura | Vampisoul
4 Oumou Sangare | Mogoya | No Format
5 Dona Onete | Banzeiro | Mais Um Discos
6 Mamadou Kelly | Politiki | Clermont Music
7 Vieux Farka Toure | Samba | Six Degrees
8 Orquesta El Macabeo | La Maldicion Del Timbal | Peace & Rhythm
9 various artists | Synthesize The Soul: Astro-Atlantic Hypnotica From The Cape Verde Islands 1973-1988 | Ostinato
10 Aurelio | Darandi | Real World

May 22, 2017

Program May 24, 2017

It's Ska Week in central Virginia!  The SuperNova International Ska Festival takes over the Fredericksburg Fairgrounds this weekend, May 27 & 28 from noon to 11:30 PM.

SuperNova is bringing artists from around the world (Derrick Morgan and Monty Neysmith from Jamaica, The Skints from England), the country (LA's The Aggrolites, NYC's The Toasters) and the region (DC's The Pietasters and Eastern Standard Time, and Murphy's Kids from right here in Richmond) to your backyard.

Sean Kennedy joins me in the studio this week to spin some of the acts he'll be checking out at SuperNova this year.  We'll also be giving away a pair of tickets to see The Skints, Mighty Joshua and Buddha Council at the Broadberry Saturday night.  And I'll play progressive salsa and vintage Afro-disco to get you warmed up for our ska-labration.

May 21, 2017

Charts May 21, 2017

WRIR's World Music Top Ten
1 Juana Molina | Halo | Crammed
2 L'Orchestre Afrisa International | Melanie | Colomotion
3 Oumou Sangare | Mogoya | No Format
4 Meta & The Cornerstones | Hira | Metarize
5 Lobo Marino | The Mulberry House | self-released
6 Elemotho | Beautiful World | ARC
7 Fruko Y Sus Tesos | Tesura | Vampisoul
8 Dona Onete | Banzeiro | Mais Um Discos
9 The Bongo Hop | Satingarona Pt. 1 | Underdog
10 Ivoryman | Culturally Rude | Tusk

May 16, 2017

Program May 17, 2017

Meta & The Cornerstones (pictured above in Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios) is a reggae band from Brooklyn with a multinational lineup bringing global elements into their sound: jazz, rock, flamenco, West Africa and the Koran all factor in.

Their third album, Hira, is my favorite reggae release so far this year, and number two isn't even close.  Find out why when I play two tracks from Hira on this week's program.

Also this week: Brazilian roots music, everybody's talking about Russia so let's hear from the FSU (former Soviet Union), and West Africa goes electronica.

May 14, 2017

Charts May 14, 2017

WRIR's World Music Top Ten
1 Oumou Sangare | Mogoya | No Format
2 Ozomatli | Non-Stop | Cleopatra
3 Forro In The Dark | Sandcastle | Nacional
4 Juana Molina | Halo | Crammed
5 Red Baraat | Bhangra Pirates | Rhyme & Reason
6 various artists | Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984 | Analog Africa
7 Fruko Y Sus Tesos | Tesura | Vampisoul
8 L'Orchestre Afrisa International | Melanie | Colomotion
9 Dona Onete | Banzeiro | Mais Um Discos
10 various artists | Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu | Uzelli

May 10, 2017

Fruko Y Sus Tesos | Tesura

ARTIST: Fruko Y Sus Tesos
TITLE: Tesura
LABEL: Vampisoul
It may seem unlikely today, but there was a time when salsa was the punk rock or the gangsta rap of the Latin music world.

Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984

ARTIST: various artists
TITLE: Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984
LABEL: Analog Africa
After 13 years of brilliant African and Afro-diasporic reissues, on album number 23 Samy Ben Redjeb’s Analog Africa Records covers Cameroon for the first time.

May 9, 2017

Program May 10, 2017

First of all, I want to thank the over 470 listeners who donated more than $42,000 during WRIR's Spring 2017 Fund Drive.  This was one of WRIR's most successful fund drives ever, and you made it happen!  You can still get in on the action: just visit wrir.org, click one of the Donate buttons, and get yourself the groovy Spring '17 premiums.

This week I've got the latest from Analog Africa Records, kings of the crate-diggers.  It's called Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984, a period when disco was infecting everything in its vicinity, even African music.  I'll spin a hot disco-meets-makossa track from Pastuer Lappe (pictured above) in a set of Afro-disco.

Also this week: Balkan and Rajasthani brass blasters, Tabu Ley's Afrisa International as they sounded in 1974 and sound today, and electro-cumbia straight outta Mexico.

May 8, 2017

Charts May 7, 2017

WRIR's World Music Top Ten
1 Ibibio Sound Machine | Uyai | Merge
2 Tinariwen | Elwan | Anti-
3 Battle Of Santiago | La Migra | Made With Pencil Crayons
4 Juama Molina | Halo | Crammed
5 Daniel Dzidzonu | Vikpome | Zephyrus
6 Fruko Y Sus Tesos | Tesura | Vampisoul
7 Oumou Sangare | Mogoya | No Format
8 Mamadou Kelly | Politiki | Clermont Music
9 Tamikrest | Kidal | Glitterbeat
10 Vieux Farka Toure | Samba | Six Degrees

May 1, 2017

Program May 3, 2017

Julio Ernesto Estrada, better known as Fruko (pictured above), has done more than any other person to make salsa into Colombian music, and to make Colombia the world capital of salsa.  Clearly he didn't do it with his ravishing looks.

Madrid's Vampisoul Records has embarked on a major reissue of material from the catalog of Discos Fuentes, Colombia's biggest record label.  Appropriately, they've started by reissuing the first two albums by Fruko Y Sus Tesos.  You'll hear tracks from both of them, plus a third Fruko classic, on this week's program.

Also this week: a tour across the Caribbean, new desert blues (Sahara and Timbuktu variants) from Mali, and Zimbabwe's old and new generations.

Charts April 30, 2017

WRIR's World Music Top Ten
1 Oumou Sangare | Mogoya | No Format
2 Dona Onete | Banzeiro | Mais Um Discos
3 Meta & The Cornerstones | Hira | Metarize
4 Mokoomba | Luyando | Out|Here
5 The Nile Project | Jinja | self-released
6 Forro In The Dark | Sandcastle | Nacional
7 Kondi Band | Salone | Strut-INTL BLK
8 Monsalve Y Los Forajidos | "Abeja" / "Black & Decker" | Olindo
9 Dayme Arocena | Cubafonia | Brownswood
10 Tamikrest | Kidal | Glitterbeat