World Music Matters Podcast
1) Electric Vocuhila: the French quartet with taste, and talent, for African rhythms
Electric Vocuhila combine the spirit of free-jazz legend Ornette Coleman with driving urban guitar rhythms like tsapiky from Madagascar or Congolese sebene. They masterfully sew them together on their...Show More
Electric Vocuhila: the French quartet with taste, and talent, for African rhythms
12:26 | Sep 18th, 2020
2) Cult 1984 album 'Sons of Ethiopia' enchants new audiences in 2020
Admas, a quartet of young Ethiopian musicians living in exile in Washington DC, had a ball recording an album of synth-heavy, funked up versions of Ethiopian classics. 'Sons of Ethiopia ' was soon for...Show More
3) Ennio Morricone: a tribute to the late maestro
Italian composer Ennio Morricone was famed for his film scores but his work straddled jazz, pop, psychedelia as well as the avant-garde, influencing bands as diverse as Air and Metallica.
4) Hachalu Hundessa: the Oromo singer who helped transform politics in Ethiopia
"Everyday I walk in this city, I know I walk alongside death," singer Hachalu Hundessa said just days before he was shot dead in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on 28 June. We hear how the 34-year o...Show More
Hachalu Hundessa: the Oromo singer who helped transform politics in Ethiopia
15:42 | Jul 3rd, 2020
5) 'Black Lives Matter', and songs are showing it's a fact
Inspiring speeches are great, but a song can travel and connect people like nothing else. After the tragic death of George Floyd, musicians are helping to bring issues of police violence and social ju...Show More
6) Ariana Vafadari breathes life into Anahita, Persian goddess of water
After exploring Zoroastrian chants on her 2016 album “Gathas, songs my father taught me”, mezzo soprano Ariana Vafadari puts femininity to the fore with the heart-wrenching “Anahita”, inspired by the ...Show More
7) The Eddy: a love letter to jazz in modern, multicultural Paris
There are big names in The Eddy, a Netflix series about a struggling jazz club in Paris. But the real star is jazz. And since coronavirus is depriving us of the thrill of live music, the jazz sessions...Show More
8) Mugogo!: electronic music from the coast of Kenya
When Swiss beatmaker FlexFab was doing a set in the coastal town of Kilifi, Kenya, a young Kenyan rapper Ziller Bas grabbed the mike and delivered his "Swengflow". The chemistry was immediate and six ...Show More
9) Touki: how West Africa's kora found kindred spirit in the banjo
When musicians Amadou Diagne and Cory Seznec had a chance encounter in a bar in Bath in 2007, they knew one day they would record together. Thirteen years later, after many "touki" (journeys), they've...Show More
10) Chadian band Pulo NDJ creates sounds out of its Lomé lockdown
When N'Djamena-based electro band Pulo NDJ found themselves stranded in Abuja with no chance of returning to Chad because of the coronavirus, they made their way to Lomé, set up a home studio and reco...Show More