Afropop Worldwide

The first time Puerto Rican bandleader Willie Rosario heard the word salsa applied to the Cuban-style music he played was in Venezuela, where DJ Phidias Danilo first popularized it. Subsequently applied as a marketing tool by Fania Records in New York, the word quickly became a marker of Puerto Rican identity. This 1995 production talks to the founding bandleaders of the genre -- Rafael Ithier (El Gran Combo), Quique Lucca (Sonora Ponceña), and Willie Rosario -- and presents immortal hits of early Puerto Rican salsa. Produced by Ned Sublette with José Mandry. [APWW #207]

In 2019, Afropop Worldwide hosted a stage at South by Southwest in Austin, TX, for the first time. Our lineup featured innovative new sounds out of Africa, including Jojo Abot from Ghana, Adekunle Gold from Nigeria, groundbreaking DJ AfrotroniX, Sauti Sol from Kenya and more. In this episode, we meet the artists, sample their sets, and take in the growing presence of African music at America’s most essential pop music expo. The start of a fine tradition! Produced by Banning Eyre. [APWW #801] [Originally aired in 2019]

Producer Morgan Greenstreet follows the trail of West African Vaudou spiritual music to a very unlikely place–Utrecht, Netherlands–for the first edition of the Voodoo To Go Festival. The three-day festival, pioneered by Togolese entrepreneur Leopold Ekué Messan, set out to demystify Vaudou/Vodun/Voodoo spiritual practices by featuring music and dance from Togo, Benin, Haiti, Cuba and Suriname and bringing people together for films, food and a panel discussion about “Good and Evil in Voodoo.” From the opening ceremony, to the climactic final moments of the festival, the music at Voodoo To Go was filled with the spirit: Trance-inducing traditional music from Togolese/Beninois diaspora group Djogbé; heavy, retro Vaudou funk from Togolese musician Peter Solo and Vaudou Game, based in Lyon, France; Surinamese Kawina music from Rotterdam-based dance band Dray-ston; Late-night Haitian Vaudou-jazz from Erol Josué; and, finally an intense collaboration between Cuban jazz maestro Omar Sosa and Togolese musician and dancer Ayaovi Kokoussé. Alongside the excellent music, we hear from various participants in the festival discussing what Voodoo means to them: a Winti priestess; fascinated Dutch music fans; and, of course, the musicians who make music inspired by the spirit. [APWW # 717] [Originally aired in 2014]

Competition between communities of Indian and African descent has been a mainstay of politics and culture in the former British colonies of Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. This rivalry plays out in institutions from the University of the West Indies to the West Indies cricket team, and of course, popular music. At the time of Trinidad's Independence, the Afro-Caribbean political elite of the day sought to enshrine calypso as the country's national music, but new genres have emerged, from the steel-pan jazz and calypso of the 1960s to soca and its successor, chutney-soca, which for the first time in the 1980s fully integrated Indian and African influences in a local popular music. This Hip Deep edition explores all of these styles, and also the music of diaspora communities in the U.S. and the U.K.. Ethnomusicologist Peter Manuel of the City University of New York shares his ground-breaking research on Indo-Caribbean music in all of its geographic and social contexts. His music and insights reveal a fascinating, overlooked story of hybrid Caribbean culture. Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. [APWW #556] [Originally Aired 2008]

This guitar-focused program presents a series of mostly acoustic sessions with Garifuna star Aurelio Martinez, griot guitar master Aboubacar "Badian" Diabate, Malagasy tsapika phenom Damily, and Abdramane Toure, the 17-year-old guitarist for Khaira Arby of Timbuktu. These four uniquely talented players talk about their careers, their learning process, and their highly personal guitar styles. Along the way we catch up with a rich selection of beautifully guitar-filigreed music, from Honduran soul to Sahara desert blues and the uniquely boogieing funerals of southern Madagascar. Produced by Banning Eyre in 2011. [APWW #608]

Technology is one of the great drivers of musical change, and often one of its least understood. In this episode, we explore the synthesizer, looking closely at the history of this ubiquitous (and often debated) piece of musical technology, and investigating how and why it was first used in a variety of African musics. Enabled by groundbreaking record reissues by synth pioneers like William Onyeabor (Nigeria) and Hailu Mergia (Ethiopia), disco stars like Kris Okotie, and South African superstar Brenda Fassie, we take you back to the ’70s and ’80s, listening to the birth of a distinctly African electronic sound. Produced by Sam Backer.

In this Hip Deep edition, Afropop producer Wills Glasspeigel heads to South Africa to reveal the story of the inimitable Hugh Tracey, a field recordist born at the turn of the 20th century in England. A wayward youth, Tracey found himself in Africa in the 1920s where he became fascinated with music from Zimbabwe. Tracey became a pioneer field recordist, making over 250 LPs of traditional African music for the Gallo label in South Africa. Like John and Alan Lomax in the US, Tracey was instrumental in preserving hundreds of songs that have since gone extinct. Glasspiegel speaks with Dianne Thram, director of Tracey library in Grahamstown, South Africa; Tracey's son Andrew, a musician and field recordist in his own right; Michael Baird, an expert on the Tracey catalog; and esteemed South African anthropologist David Coplan. We'll also head to Malawi to make a field recording of our own with the help of Malawian singer, Esau Mwamwaya. [APWW #590] Originally aired 03-25-2010

On a 2018 return visit to the archipelago of Cape Verde, we find all sorts of fresh musical activity, global and local. We hear some spectacular young female vocalists in this program, including Fatou Diakite, descended from a Malian family, but raised in Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, and a master of styles from morna to gumbe. We also meet Lucibela, now based in Lisbon, and one of the most talked about Cape Verdean singers today. And we hear new work from Nancy Vieira, Jenifer Solidade and Elida Almeida. We also meet local artists unknown on the local scene, including producer and cutting-edge songwriter Wilson Silva, and high school-aged singer Maya Neves—already a diva! The great Cesaria Evora may be gone, but Cape Verde’s musical spirit is thriving! [APWW #779]

We go to Miami to enjoy highlights from the 21st annual Afro Roots Fest at the North Beach Bandshell. Co-headliners are the sublime griot singer Noura Mint Seymali from Mauritania and the Grammy nominated diva Fatoumata Diawara from Mali. Noura graces us with special backstage performance of the ancient harp, ardine. And Fatoumata sings a capella, showing us what she says is her voice as a traditional instrument. We also hear local artists Jose Elias of Cortadito and the Grammy nominated Danay Suarez. Along the way, we take a tour of Miami's lively local radio. Afro Roots indeed! Produced by Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre. Live mix by Niall Macaulay.

While others look back on 2019 and the decade of the 2010s, Georges Collinet and Banning Eyre choose instead to look ahead to the 2020s in their annual year-end conversation. It's an hour of African music that points to the future: new styles, new hybrids, artists to watch, and glimpses of upcoming Afropop Worldwide projects and productions. Georges and Banning take a moment to acknowledge some greats who have left us, but whose music will surely live on. And they put out a challenge to listeners regarding the future of our program.