Vampire Weekend- intro to African music?!
Question: I love the band Vampire Weekend and love their blend of afropop and indie. I want to get more into the African music that they sound like-where should I start? What's some good vampire weekend-esque african music that will get me into it? Kwassa kwassa music?
Answers: I love the band Vampire Weekend and love their blend of afropop and indie. I want to get more into the African music that they sound like-where should I start? What's some good vampire weekend-esque african music that will get me into it? Kwassa kwassa music?
I don't know about kwassa kwassa so much... but for an intro to African music you could try Soweto Gospel Choir, Fela Kuti, Yoav, Tartit, Angelique Kidjo, Yannick Noah, and Pachi Pamwe. These are just the first few names that come to mind and that I have on my iPod. I don't know of a lot of modern African musicians, besides Yoav and SGC. A lot of the ones I mentioned are traditional, or aren't "active" anymore.
SGC is pretty much what you would imagine. Since you like VW, try their songs Thina Simqobile, Paradise Road, and Zanele.
Yoav is a young South African guy, he makes more acoustic music, and I think his "thing" is that he uses his guitar in a lot of creative ways. Or it's that every song on his album is from a guitar...
Tartit is a group of Malian (??) refugees that make that typical "weird" African music. They're mostly tribal stuff, but they also do great guitar music. Check out Ansari by them.
Angelique and Yanick both sing in French, so I don't know how interested in them you'd be. I'm not too familiar with Angelique but Yannick is quite good.
Pachi Pamwe, if I remember correctly, are actually two guys from the east coast or England... but their song Tema Musasa is very African-influenced like VP. You can find them on myspace.
So, if you can wade your way through all that information, hopefully you'll find something or someone you like! If all else fails, just do some googling or see what you can find in the foreign iTunes stores, that's what I do!
Also! Not African but kind of similar to VP, try The Tough Alliance from Sweden. They have the same broad, jangly, influenced-from-all-over sound.