Starting off this new year with two new releases: Waande Kadde, dreamy acoustic Pulaar music from the villages of Fouta Toro, and Top WZN, synth, drum machines, and electric tidnit from the capital city of Mauritania. While they are immediately sonically different, they bear more similarities than one may suspect.…
The new music video for Ami Yerewolo's "A San Nièfai" takes Malian Hip Hop into a science fiction future. In the video, a trio of post apocalyptic survivors wander through the Malian countryside, stumbling on the destroyed and smoking ruin of the capital. Meanwhile, they are pursued by a vehicular…
Les Filles de Illighadad arrived in Europe yesterday, and have begun their debut tour across the EU! The four piece, all hailing from the village of Illighadad in the region of Abalak, plays a combination of tende and guitar music. Tuareg guitar music as a genre is increasingly familiar outside…
Our friends at the Neopan Kollektiv have finished up their documentary "A Story of Sahel Sounds." The film is what it says on the tin. A few years back, the filmmakers reached out about a project to document the work of Sahel Sounds. Over the past 3 years, the film…
We recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for our new film "Zerzura" - a modern Tuareg folktale. You can check out the trailer at the above link. The film follows a young man from in Niger who leaves home in search of an enchanted oasis. His journey leads him into a surreal vision of the Sahara, crossing paths with djinn, bandits, gold seekers, and migrants.
This is Kologo Power! by Various The Kologo is a lute from Northern Ghana. It is physically very similar to many of the other versions of the "tradi-guitar" in West Africa (hoddu, xalam, tidnit, terhadant, ngoni), but for it's minimal design - a calabash, covered in goat skins, and boasting…