MUSIC (LingalaPop): Innoss'B's Logik

Logic is a very pleasant and radiant video clip. One suspects that those who didn't yet know Innoss'B will be quite surprised by his Logik. Sung in English, Lingala and French in different measures, the song is, in tone and dance moves, a genre as far from Rumba as can be. It's a musical cocktail in a distinctly millennial style. That's to say, it has a beat, and dance memes, that place it at the very eye-of-the-storm that's today's youth-driven and borderless pop. 

But for the lyrics, and the people who play assigned roles in the clip, Logik might as well be a production out of New York City; or a major European city, for that matter -- which it probably is in a literal sense. And yet Innoss'B's talent isn't getting as much attention in the social media as it deserves. That should change.

Click here to watch the video clip

Bum Bum, Yemi Alade's Fyne Samba

Here's Yemi's serio-comic, and ample (amble), interpretation of de Samba mouvement. And alluring. De beat beats, so fyne. De tune's tuned (up), and tuning. De tempo's a well-timed tempest. De aft shines through it all, too. And everything flows, and flows, w/ de aft. 

Click to watch de vid -- de vindyo

T'all breeds cock-a-doodle envy ende competitive strutting when dem dudes from de locality arrive 4 a show(down). Dem whose whatever builds up pretty quick, fired up by de spectacle of Yemis' diverted attention. She who's not stoppin' "Today, Today" for no such tin. Dey even demand a time (frame) in de glare of 'er looks. I mean, Time. Dey want a sub-division. But de beat ain't stoppin', eider. 

But it's de guy w/ a pipe and hidden baldness, and even badder moves (soon enough unveiled), who has de chimney to Yemi's ultra warm heart. Say, hearth! Try as de oders May, Terry. I mean Teresa.

So what's one to do as temper's tempo, and de tempo's temper, both rise? A dance cock-fight, of course. Contestants on both sides be fynely wardrobed, afta a fashion, for dis O so predictable raga -- already. Hair's all done, dis way and even dat, and cropped. But His Baldness has a secret up his sleeve, and wins hands down, with impossible moves. To Yemi's knowing nod.

De Samba be sweeping de condiment. Right now. Is all.

Fact Check: Only rusty tin I saw was de tins pretendin' 2 b de opening footage -- credits -- 4 dis do.   

MUSIC (Congolese): Amour en Or by Claudia Bakisa ft. Fabregas Metis Noir

A street-dance for two, and only two, is what we come upon in this secluded place, in the sun's final rays of the day. "Graceful Pair Locked in a Twilight Street-Dance", is how I would title the funky rumba -- Soukous, if you want, or #LingalaPop -- that we're all witness to; this flawless art-in-motion act, in which the dancers, oblivious of everything else, are verily birds of a feather.

Willowy Claudia Bakita, aka Black Belt, takes center-stage and figure dances her heart out in this lovers' bond, for sure. Her fine bearing and feline steps draw all, nearly all, the attention -- into her golden bosom. "Nakupenda sana" (= I love you so much), she declares -- as if in every direction. Who would blame anyone? Her sultry voice charms every man, and everyone, bewitched, will take it personally. 

But it is Fabregas. It is he, her companion on that street (in this iconic video) -- and he alone -- who's the reason we have true rumba here and, what is more, all the insinuations of love that fill the calm air in this laid-back and unobtrusive neighborhood. In those final moments of a perpetual saga in which Yin eases Yang, gently, into a dark room, it is he! Wololo!

"Emama wololo
Emama wololo
Emama wololo".


Click to watch the video

Charly and Nina Sing and Dance in Mfata

In Mfata, the Charly na (= and) Nina duo from Rwanda sings a very cheerful and quick-paced song in perfect harmony of voice, and dances in wonderful synchronicity with the sounds which the band delivers so effortlessly and with such infectious passion. 

Click here to watch the video

It's a classy band, by any measure. Though it remains utterly out of sight and nameless, it invades our brainwaves with no resistance whatsoever.

The 'stage' is well-set for the mood which the singer-dancers obviously intended to project in this sing-and-dance gig. Just as likely, the catchy tunes were well-chosen for the party spirit known in advance to pervade this imaginary place, in which we find ourselves temporary patrons. In this clubbing scene, we sense, almost any move goes! The girl band feels perfectly at home in all this, then!  

MUSIC (Congolese): Fally Ipupa and His Band 'Headed' To Dondwa

Fally Ipupa is at it again with his friends in this 'journey' To Dondwa. Each has a turn in this up-beat song, rendered suavely in a sort of Lingala Pop. The dancing is noticeably rhythmic, with every dancing body swaying as one to fine music. 

Click to watch the video of To Dondwa

This is not as easy to achieve as they make it appear in such a large 'gathering'. Without due choreography, it tends to be frayed at the seams and right in the middle by a 'cacophony' of body-movement.  

We have seen such in other dance-routines and pop, or strictly weekend, productions. The era of informed and creative choreography is firmly upon us.

Ai: Haiku

Drone from yon Ai.
Dance of light, in the dark'ning.
Tulip's box shadows.

Awilo Longomba's Cache Cache

Awilo Longomba's Cache Cache, translated as 'hide and seek', was uploaded as video to YouTube only on June 4th, 2011. But the audio version is really much older than the year suggests. As the chronology of his artistic journey indicates, the song features in his Kafou Kafou album/CD, which was released in 2001 (see also this source) -- though year 2000 has also been mentioned. 

Cache cache is a gem. Very French in the lyrics. Very Awilo in the vibes. It is (self)-teasing in spirit. And naughty. It is a whirlwind of mirth and tempo. And unforgettable. It is so very 'fun'!

The dancers' energy infects. Their verve conquers all who fall into its embrace, and who are game for an unbridled and mesmerizing swirl. The beat is show-stopping. 

Awilo, the quintessential "animateur", he who is the heart of the party (any party we find him in), is the centrifugal force for all the dancing we're witness to here -- as well as the song and the tunes it accompanies, and likewise spices. And the girls, both singing and dancing? Well, they are sirens.

Click here for the Cache Cache video

Sheebah's Nkwatako

Queen Sheeba isn't bashful. No, no, no! Which is a good thing. She sings like a snake-charmer -- with, perhaps, her namesake's (her role model's) beguiling voice. The slowed-down tempo in Nkwatako (which means "Touch me" in Luganda) is a disarming ruse, central to her secret art of war -- and her seduction. It accentuates her unique vocal cords, which demand it here; and around which every command and everything else revolves.

She, Sheebah, dances like a rebel queen, at a makeshift camp of her own choosing, outside the gates of the last fortress, north of something, which she's fixing to overrun with her time-travelling troops -- on her way to meet her fabled king. And so to realize her grand plan. 

Her dancing and connecting motions are thus by design, and sprinkled with allusions. It's an art-form masquerading both as pure war-dance and pure theater; a fleeting homage to, a cross between, the choreographed motions of the dance-hall and today's (and tomorrow's) stylized ballet. It is, at its core, a muted fertility dance -- with accent on (her own) desire. 

The costumes we see on everyone involved, and the funky mix of colors in motion, are a pure fashion do brought in to camouflage, in plain sight, the real intentions. And the music, ah yes the music, is the real weapon of war here: Hard-edged and yet harmonizing, spartan (and so without flourish), mobilizing and equal to the task.  

READ: Felista Esolio's Review of Nkwatako

NOTE: The lyrics of this Ugandan song are an intriguing mix of Luganda and English.

READ: A Version of the Nkwatako Lyrics

Tanzania's Dully Sykes and Harmonize Impress in Inde

The song Inde, given to us by two young singers, Dully Sykes and Harmonize, epitomizes as much as anything else the emergence (the arrival) onto the continental stage of a swagging, super self-confident peer-group of Tanzanian millennials eager to shake things up more than a little bit, musically, and thus claim a place on the mountain-top. Indeed, they are eager to explore modes of expression quite discrepant with, and quite unexpected in, Dar-Es-Salaam's cautious cultural infrastructure, which, ironically, has produced them just as they are artistically, and seems willing to let them be. 

Together with a good number of other music videos, Inde symbolizes a brave new world for Tanzanian artistes -- who play second fiddle to no one. They are a veritable energy source: Swahili, the language in which they sing, is predominantly theirs (and as 'pure' as you want it delivered). The genre, Bongo Flava, is theirs. The threads? The sky's the limit to how they can put them all together. Fine threads, then, and fine tunes reveal both good taste and conscious grooming. 

Their fan-base, which devours all this, is large and devoted and getting larger, and always has been. It gives them strength and drive. And, whatever the explanation, they seem more successful in their talent-related entrepreneurial pursuits than their Kenyan and South African counterparts. Indeed, more so than their own country seems to be still in the eyes of many observers, given its lingering socialistic past.  

Overall, then, Inde is a winning song. The set is neat. The singers' and dancers' stage-presence is truly attractive. I see fine, attention-grabbing moves that really add flavor to the whole thing. This almost masks a consistently jarring noise in the background -- emanating, it might seem, from a tone-deaf source. But it's almost certain that this vexation is computer-generated percussion gone awry. One does frequently encounter this tendency to generate instrumental sounds in that way among musicians looking to cut stifling production costs. All that said, Inde definitely deserves a place among Africa's Top 40 Pop Songs of 2016.

READ: Inde Lyrics

Oritse Femi's Awoo Ewaa

In Tomorrow, as I noted in a previous comment, Oritse Femi wonderfully blended rap with melody of a uniquely Oristeferian kind to give us a deeply felt song. He does not disappoint this time around, either. 

There is no rap in Awoo Ewaa, you will see, but there is all the passion and the melody from before. Not only from Tomorrow, but also, I think one remembers, from Igbeyawo. Awoo Ewaa is simply the most emotionally intense of all the leading African songs I've heard in all of 2016. But it is more. And all this is thanks for the most part to Oriste Femi's all-conquering and irrepressible signature voice. He, who is his own favorite artiste.

Thus, whether it is an Igbeyawo (= wedding) motif, appropriately dressed for, or (as in Awoo Ewaa) a street-theatrical (all-people) power-pushing performance with accent on the authenticity of day-to-day and mostly peri-urban life -- and chic -- Oritse Femi excels with a fervor that never abandons him and that he never does. It's awesome!

SEE ALSO: Aiye Mi

The video, directed by Avalon Okpe, runs for 3:40 minutes of unrelenting lumpen-proletarian, almost religious, animation. The street crowd is engaged in an intensely physical way, but not aurally. There is a symphony of visual things and body texts, but the voice, the clipped and soaring voice, is Oriste Femi's -- and his alone. And nothing overshadows it. Nothing.

An invisible band delivers mesmerizing and almost hypnotic sounds. The music in its totality, fusing with the street dancing, makes for a fine and moving celebration. The intensity is everyone's, and so is the joy: "All the mama and papa dem shake body". The rhythm of bodies, young and older, is lumpen (as already suggested); here where life's usual chaff is not swept under some civic carpet. And where there is no rust cover. Organized frenzy is all, in the end -- "Jakomo"!   

I conclude by echoing Oritse Femi with these words, from his lyrics:

"oya make everybody dey dance oh
awooo ewaa
everybody dey dance oh
awooo ewaa
everybody
awooo ewaa" ~ Oritse Femi

Click to watch the video


HERE: The lyrics for Awoo Ewaa

Kanda's Yolanda

Kanda Bongo Man's music, so well exemplified by Yolanda, is, stylistically, an important link or milestone in the progression of African music -- integral to which is, inescapably, Congolese music -- in the last 65+ years or so; that is, in the period from the late Fifties to now -- the middle of the second decade of the 21st century. 

The usual criteria/aspects of interest when tracking this change are, in broad terms: voice, sound and optics. That is, how voice and sound fuse, what body texts interpret (so to speak) this fusion and how far they go in doing so, and how all of this carries the baton of creativity from Yolanda's past to its time and place and on to its future -- that is, to our "present" and well beyond. 

Yolanda is thus to be seen as a genealogical artifact of sorts, which we are happy to have in our hands. It is a window on the past of now, but not the only window -- and not the only artifact we have from Kanda or his artistic contemporaries. It is, to be sure, a Golden that's not quite yet, perhaps, Oldie for some. There's much to be said about all that it represents, and others likewise do, in time and space, but the time to do so in any detail is not quite now. 

All I want to say right now is that Yolanda is a precursor -- if perhaps by default or long-winded and fuzzy influence -- for what the younger artistes of the present decade are crafting and giving us by way of so many permutations and combinations, and departures.

Suffice it to add that the fine melody we hear here is typical Kanda. The fluid dance moves of the man -- the body and soul synchrony -- are signature Kanda. Kanda's never-say-die spirit is solid sapeur. His sartorial sensibilities are pure sapeur. And his supporting cast of supple bodies are a firm and charmed bough in the sturdy family tree of African dance.

Take a listen, take a look.

MUSIC: Sente(nced) ~ Be Be Cool's Eyeview of Uganda's Club Culture

Sente, we are told, means money. But Be Be Cool isn't singing here only about some kind of Cash Daddy. Though perhaps he is, obliquely. He sings in three languages -- Luganda, English and Swahili -- though perhaps he sees them all as one really big thing.

The video component of Sente serves us vignettes of well-remembered beer-club doings in Uganda. But this is not unique to his country. It has historically been a feature of lumpen-proletarian life across much of Sub-Sahara: East to Central to West, South to the Equator. Here, Ayatolla Be Be in make-believe fighter-pilot's goggles and an assortment of dandy-garbs -- all of which perhaps make him a garba(atulla) of sorts but not quite a Sapeur -- preachifies against the corrosive-corrupting power of money. 

In the refrain to his song we hear:

"Love is free, never for sale.
If you sell, money will kill.

You'll witness your marriage die.

You'll bury alive."

In sight and sound, Sente portrays the leisure interludes of hard-knuckle urban life: centered on dance, beer and shifting fidelities -- plus the awkward sleuthing that betrayal prompts. Money is hard to find. And so see what it does to the social fabric when it appears, in whatever semblance of plenitude! The question invariably asked by perplexed onlookers, who are yet to know the underlying story, then is:

"Huyu ni nani?
Huyu ni nani?" 
[Trans. Who be this dude?]

The threads and moves of the dance scenes, enhanced by the song's worry-free tempo, evoke beer-club chic, of sorts, on a good weekend or holiday (holy!). Lucky them dancers. With all the fussiness that such dressing entails, they were not allowed to wallow in drunken mud. So changing-room logistics were kept to a minimum. It was dry season, too, p'raps. 

The high visibility of the members of Be Be's band is unusual in music-videos. It is remarkable -- see the guitar player, see the accordionist, see the percussionista -- and adds to the totality of the everyone's experience.

Dance for Me by Eugy ft. Mr. Eazi

Dance for Me is sung by two superb artistes from West Africa: (a) Ghanaian-born Eugy, who has lived in the UK for a long while; and, (b) Nigerian-born Mr. Eazi, who lives in Ghana, where he has blood relatives, and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering! The duo has clearly leveraged its 'all mixed-up' background to outperform, already, in the often treacherous music industry. Dance for Me will always be for me the best AfroPop song in 2016. Indeed, it was, shall we say, "one in a billion."

READ: A short biography of Eugy

CLICK: A bio of Mr. Eazi

Dance for Me (produced by Team Salut and directed by Alexx Adjei) starts with Mr. Eazi's alpha voice bellowing and drawing all the attention, in a most dramatic fashion. "It's yo boy Eazi," he declares, "Eugy official. Music so sensual." There's the theme, for this 2016 theme-song of dance videos!

You sense you're on to something spectacular here. You are. And yet the only images you see of both singers in the first video below -- which was produced earlier, and which the TV channels usually show -- are Eugy's pleasantries as he walks by the leading lady (at 0:15 seconds), and Mr. Eazi's still picture (at 0:17 seconds). You don't see either Mr. Eazi or Eugy sing, or dance. Their voices, which after much temptation (one supposes) even break into a bit of rap, are all you hear throughout the song's 3:29-minute run. To see the duo in any sort of action, you have to watch the second video below. It is included here in order to keep faith with a dictum I see no reason to violate: that for a dance video, as for the more common music video, consideration for purposes of rating (or ranking) should not be given to any track in which the singer, or singers, appears only in 'canned' form (for more of this argument, click to read this post). This stance leads me to a point that is at once more fundamental and more self-evident: You can have a song without dance, but no dance without a song -- heard, remembered or improvised.  

Dance for Me is, as Mr. Eazi suggests, a sensual [very sensual] dance video, with an addictive beat that's used sparingly here, since the voices dominate. Good overpowering vibes course through it all. We see the 'glow' of all this in those agile female bodies -- those who dance, who indeed become dance itself, with so much finesse and such refined attention to a sensitively detailed choreography. 

The lyrics are truly tailor-made for smart, vigorous and athletic dancing. And every dancer, as good as the next, adds to the marvel that is the totality of this track -- nothing of which escapes the camera's eye. 

Incidentally, we are informed that Shoki and Alkayida (note the spelling), which are showcased here, are two popular dancing styles in Ghana right now. So sing along -- and dab -- if you please:

"Shoki shoki me say alkayida
Baby dance for me and dab."

*****************END*********************
  
Video 1 (Published on April 18, 2016):

Video 2 (Published on September 2, 2016):

CLICK HERE: Dance for Me Lyrics

MUSIC (Togo): Teré Teré by Toofan

Toofan is a super-inspired and talented duo from Togo, in West Africa. They go by the 'stage' names of Masta Just and Barabas, respectively. They have been around for more than a couple of years now, and their fame has only grown. Last month, November 2016, they released a very catchy track titled Teré Teré, which is making great waves right now on TV channels dedicated to music -- more specifically Trace Mziki and Trace Naija -- across Africa. It's catchy in both the sight and sound realms. Catchy and captivating.

       Click here for the video

The song is sung in French. But some East Africans would be forgiven to think that Toofan was using two words very familiar in their vernacular: Mano Ber (at 0:38, 0:47, 1:31, 1:40, 2:23, 2:32 and 3:18 of the video); and Sibuor (loudly at 1:42). Just aural illusions, rather than smart-alec allusions, though. For these East African ears, mano ber has a clear meaning: "that's good or fine" (whatever that is). Sibuor is the word for a lion (preferably a male lion in full gear, or mane). 

About five decades ago, one still recalls, a popular Jamaican song (by Chaka Demus and Pliers) titled Murder She Wrote (read the background story here) was similarly widely but mistakenly 'heard' and sung in Nairobi as "Mama Shiro"! And so it goes, charmingly.

Teré Teré is both the essential song and the beat which carries the dance along. It is, that is to say, a part of that niche in pop music which lays great emphasis on dancing -- group-dance (or choreographed dance routines) -- and so discourages extended or 'fancy' singing. This niche has been around for quite a while, really, but seems to be enjoying some kind of resurgence now. So the singing in Teré Teré is of limited scope. 

The only melody there is in Teré Teré, you don't hear -- you see. It is in the body-text of the men and women or girls of the very same Teré Teré. It is in how their bodies excite in unison, driven 'madly' sensuous by beat, mood and indigo circumstance. It is in the perfectly timed pauses that, in the 'witching moment, transmute into poses -- and postures, even -- that are themselves music to the eye. In the rippling glow of a slow-motion jig in the video by the lady in grey at the car's open doors, her back to us. It's in the awkwardly outstretched hands seeming to levitating the dancer who stretches them, with knees knocking, into the very heart of the dance. And finally in that naughty finger-pointing by the male protagonist, sneakily taunting fertile minds.

In short, to borrow a meme from Swiss cheese, Teré Teré is practically all dance, with just enough lyrics (and related singing) to hold the dance together. And Teré Teré is at once the song's title and the lyrics' (and the dance's) dominant punctuation mark.
Click Here for a Partial Transcript of: Teré Teré lyrics







#TheYamboSelection

Fuse ODG's Jinja

In a number of respects, 2016 will be remembered as the year of the crowd-dance. There was even a dance fever of sorts among African artistes and their fandoms, each crowd seemingly bent on outdoing the others and wowing the rest of the world. Not a bad thing either.  

Fuse ODG has deliberately chosen for his song, published in late October 2016, a title with two fertile and tantalizing connotations, as one can see at the beginning of the video. First, certainly for his team and for East Africans in general, Jinja readily brings to mind a town by that name in Uganda. It is located at that 'magical' point where the great River Nile pours out of Lake Victoria, headed north through the two Sudans, and then all of Egypt, and into the Mediterranean. This river's epic and never-finished journey is part of Fuse ODG's roots. It is at the core of his conception of T.I.N.A. (This Is New Africa) -- which is also the title of his album -- regardless of where ever he may physically be at any moment.

Secondly, the word is used in the video itself to mean: (a) "to give excessive energy to a person or situation, especially through dance", or (b) to "make someone or something more lively." The song, as you will see, clearly lives up to this promise; and, I think, only this. But this use of 'jinja' is not as idiosyncratic as it might seem. It is indeed a pun on a fairly common 'slang'. To "ginger up", Merriam-Webster tells us, means exactly what it's said to mean in (b) above; that is, "to make (someone or something) more exciting or lively" -- or, indeed, excited.  A perfect concept for a crowd-dance.

It turns out that Fuse ODG's Jinja, which is produced by KillBeatz and runs for 3:51 minutes, is one of the most outstanding dance-oriented songs to dominate the African music space this year. It goes without saying, of course, that song and dance are twins, more (much more) often than not -- certainly in Africa. But some songs, like this one, are more dance-denominated than usual. Still, one must see and hear the singer(s) for the dancing to be well-anchored. That's a crucial distinguishing criterion -- certainly for me. 

Here's the thing: we shouldn't include in our ratings of music videos any production in which the lead singer(s) remain(s) unseen throughout the song and dance, or in which the dance scenes are shot years after the song which inspires them is done. Dancing to music so 'canned' is not, shouldn't be, anyone's idea of pop music video -- no matter how good the dancing turns out to be. Art is not well-served by fracturing time -- that is, distanciating song and dance -- in that way.

So Jinja is a great piece of visually-populated music. We see and hear the singer. And the singer is there with the dancers, and the dancers with him. It's all intended to get millennials, and p'raps boomers still young at heart, up and dancing in no time. It is overflowing with the energy and creative body-and-soul moves, plus one or two nextgen dabs, of a self-assured cast. The irrepressible ODG's rapid-fire rap has catchy phrases and a relentless wordplay. "Jinja, maninja, majinja" -- is a refrain we keep hearing, as the Afrobeat goes on and on. And so it goes. Even the girls' 'cat'-walking becomes dance -- and inseparable from the groovy beat. So does a sweet half-baked dab by a little girl under, it seems, seven still to finish, uh, coordination. Everything, well- choreographed, moves as one; and it gets hotter and hotter on that charmed rooftop with all that constant and even acrobatic motion, but ends too soon. "Someone call police O!" Get that ODG!


Watch the Jinja video here

One Source by Khuli Chana ft. Kay Gizm x Victoria Kimani x Sarkodie

This intriguing video, One Source, was published on October 5th, 2016. It runs for roughly 3:47 minutes, and starts with fire burning itself, and with the proclamation that "Africa is on fire". That's the first of two main themes that course through this inspired piece of music. 

The second is that "This is a revolution". But it's not clear what kind of revolution it is, or for whom the revolution is all about. A revolutionary motif, yes, but the video's images suggest that, if anything, this less political than cultural. The latter is the more self-evident in the video's motions and colors.

As it starts, we see a heroic figure rising from under the sea, unaided, each hand carrying an Olympics-inspired (?) burning flame, which is miraculously impervious to the extinguishing power of sea-water -- any water. A simple beat picks up, and a refrain joins in -- something like, "Di di di di di di koko" -- carried by none other than Victoria Kimani's voice, tailor-made for the role. The refrain threads through the whole video. 

And it is, indeed, practically the whole song that One Source is. Victoria Kimani is unmistakably the seductive siren calling. But there is a manufactured one as well, which is really a warning of something just as manufactured but with a potentially deathly effect. A Molotov cocktail that's thrown by a visible but anonymous 'combatant' target's a windshield that's already cracked, but still "intact". It survives the throw, too. 

Two other artistes of continental and even global repute feature in this production as well: South Africa's Khuli Chana and Ghana's Sarkodie. The Ghanaian flag is there for all to take note, but is that Sarkodie asking if we know what time it is? And is that Khuli Chana cleverly touting a product we'll talk about in a moment, amid all that revolutionizing? I have not come across Kay Gizm till here, can't tell who it is in the video (the one struggling to walk on water, perhaps?) and have little with which to rate him.

On the face of it all, the music we hear is an excuse for all the imagery that fills the 3:47-minute-size space (or real-estate); but the reality of the matter is the other way round: it is the imagery, reinforced with certain phrases, that gives the cover essential to executing the real purpose of the entire musical production. And it, the visual dimension, is truly powerful, in just the way the montage of motion and shapes itself dances in our line of sight and dominates our gaze with non-stop surprises and theatricality.

So how shall we rate this entire thing? As an artistic creation, it is clearly not in the class of King Kong Remix, which for me the best pop video out of Africa in 2015.  But it's worth listening to, and, even more productively, watching -- as the visual memes than keep coming at you. You be the judge. Ultimately, however, One Source cannot escape the charge that it is essentially advertising for Absolut Vodka -- advertising sugar-coated with 'first-draft' ideas of revolutionary fervor, and perhaps angst; as well as a raft of charming images we can all relate to apolitically. Hope the artistes got a good deal for it from the vodka makers, but I find it hard to consider it for Africa's best pop videos of 2016. 

Much luv to the artistes, regardless.

MUSIC: Lola Rae's One Time

Young though she still is, Lola Rae has already packed some serious time and talent into her musical journey. And the effort's already bearing ample fruit.

HERE: Something about Lola Rae

Lola's enchanting music video, One Time, produced by Twenty20 Media in 2016, is a feast of song and hi-spirited dance. She, the leading and only voice, is both single-minded and self-assured. Her Afro-Reggae offering is a fusion of colors -- all shades of color -- dancing light, and fluid bodies, all moving in a combo of sound and unspoken, gesticulated text. 

Her song speaks to the proverbial rude boy and rude girl, and her egging, in that irresistible tone of hers, is more intoxicating than any root-beer (ha! ha!) can be to a man-child, or his naughty sister. All the stuff that's here is lovely, and here's all tinsely, but for the absence of tinsel itself -- in this cool set that's beyond make-believe.

The beat, it keeps coming at ya! It's persistent. It's hi-spirited. It's consistent. And yet as soft, as flowing, as silk. All-consumed with the tempo of the moment, the girls who have joined Lola in this feast, this feat, of camaraderie and feeling simply won't let up. 

Color and shapely forms. A bewitching cadence of (e)motion and sound. A suppleness of presence. A sense of earnest, burning desire. All these fill the air, and charm the view.

Naughty visual phrases pack the secret girls' room, too, where much of the action takes place -- to the chagrin of all them guys who cannot quite be in there, sorry.

c!

READ: The "One Time" Lyrics

MUSIC: SPETXA ONE by C4 Pedro

Spectacular's the word for C4 Pedro's (a.k.a. King cKwa) Spetxa One. It's a song of seduction -- it'll make the rooster turn pale with envy. It's a song for his -- this Angolan's, Everyman's -- Special One; a super-animated ballad, for sure. And it's spectacular in every dimensional space: The high-energy dance scenes, choreographed to the highest level of refinement -- as the ever-present camera eye, shadowing each unmissable move, nudges us in every instant to see --  the lyrics, C4 Pedro's dominant voice, the sunniest of atmospheres, the beat, the finely controlled tempo of sound and motion, the everything! It's a wonderful blend, shall we say in the end, of passion and nimble muscularity. 

HERE: Lyrics of Spetxa One



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#TheYamboSelection

A Thought ~ 5: The Twerk

The twerk, which (as so often happens with the things that draw our keen attention) precedes the word which comes to frame it, is a fertility dance for a species without the luxury of its own radiant feathers. 

But the roles are reversed and one-sided in this unprecedented dance. And so it is a 'false' expression of powerlessness. False, if you think about it, only in the tradition of the snake-charmer -- who remains by virtue of his 'flute' the cobra's dedicated 'master'. 

This dance of the ages reminds us of something that's deeply settling: that civilization, all civilization, is at its core the progeny of fertility. Even pretenders to the throne, any throne, know this. And so should all those made stiff by skin-deep prudery. Still, everything must be done with finesse, and without an excess of frequency or undue preoccupation.

MUSIC (Classic): Kapwepwe by M'Pongo Love

At the end of November 2015, I published a post on one of M'Pongo Love's most memorable songs, Ndaya. And I inserted an image/link there to another of  her great creations -- Kapwepwe. On July 17 this year, I tweeted two Youtube links to the respective songs, just to share my appreciation of them.

Since that November post, I have continued to feel a sense of guilt; a sense of disproportionate attention to two wonderful things. I felt that I simply had not paid Kapwepwe the attention that it deserved as a moving musical feat -- and feast of the spirit. It's a stand-out light in its own right, radiant in its own glow. A Time bender.

In several ways, Ndaya and Kapwepwe represent, nay invoke, different kinds of engagement. The one is more sonorous, more introspective; the other less pensive and more upbeat. Sunnier. More of a call, with a rousing beat (by Orch. Les Ya Toupas), to the ever receptive dance floor -- a floor so hopelessly intertwined with the days of our youth. Yes, more about the moment than about connections. 

Both songs are veritable classics. They are intrinsic to baby-boomer remembrances in and of Eastern and Central Sub-Sahara. They are an enduring part of our fond past. 

Alas, for all that flourish, for me the recorded song, Kapwepwe, ends abruptly at 2:35 minutes -- just as we're getting comfortable in our flight of fancy -- though it runs, inexplicably, for another 2:47. If there is any unifying theme in the two halves, it is that they both start with the very same beat, which, to the inattentive ear, is practically over before it even registers in the ear. Still, one is left with the sense that the tune -- that some kind of tune -- lingers somewhere in there in the second half. So that there is a hint of unity in that palpable difference.

Kapwepwe, thus, is, truly, a tale of two musical territories with a jagged borderland one wishes one didn't have to cross. Territories which, like DRC and Zambia, have staked claims to this meme, with all the intrigue worthy of Byzantium. Still...


Here's Kapwepwe:

READ: Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe.











Blog Post updated August 10, 2016