Upwardly Mobile In Africa
The News Review:
- Upwardly Mobile In Africa
- Passport to the Future
- … Twista Iron and Wine Keyshia Cole Weakerthans – Music -…
- The John Butler Trio live reviews | Music | Arts & Entertainment …
- Grandmaster of reggae keeps audience under his spell
- MIA – Gig Reviews – Music – Entertainment – smh.com.au
- Lost & Found – CD Reviews – Music – Entertainment – smh.com.au
Upwardly Mobile In Africa
BusinessWeek – Sep 24, 2007
Macharia a Nairobi-based businessman is opening new stores selling cell phones and airtime in step with the expansion of Safaricom’s network. “Whenever they put up a new mast we try to provide coverage” Macharia says above the blare of reggae music during opening celebrations for a new outlet in thaya a town about 50 miles from Nairobi. There is even a whiff of startup frenzy as companies spring up to serve the mobile industry. Lagos (Nigeria)-based M-Tech Communications founded in 2001 develops content—everything from ringtones to crop price information—for mobile-service providers in Kenya Uganda Ivory Coast and elsewhere. “There is significant value in those markets purely because of the numbers” of people says co-founder and CE Chika Nwobi a graduate of East Tennessee State University. Everyone it seems is getting into the act.
Passport to the Future
PopMatters – Sep 24, 2007
Ricardo is strumming that endless lovingly irritating chord on his acoustic guitar and I’m wondering why the hell I’m the only person in Mexico that doesn’t know who Chao is. ver the next few years and continuing with the release of his recent La Radiolina (Nacional) Chao would become one of my favorite musicians a sentiment shared already of course by millions. Sometimes referred to as a “modern Bob Marley” Chao does share his love of reggae music. Yet there’s so much more to his style than just reggae. He may be one of the most indescribable artists today. Chao is an adherent of the idea that less is more; hence his songs rarely extend past three minutes.
… Twista Iron and Wine Keyshia Cole Weakerthans – Music -…
New York Times – Sep 24, 2007
The beats many by his longtime producer Toxic provide a slithery counterpart to his staccato style: in “Creep” with T-Pain he raps over a serpentine guitar loop; in “The Come Up” Toxic slows down Twista’s voice to heighten the contrast with the eerie sped-up sample. Despite a passel of guests this album feels more focused more Chicago-centric than his 2005 album “The Day After. ” Hidden near the end is “Pimp Like Me” a tribute to the breakneck Chicago dance genre known as juke music; in the chorus the beat goes double-time as if the drum machine were trying to outdo the rapper. Twista’s track may not spawn a national craze but it’s a welcome reminder of the irreducible weirdness of the city that spawned him. KELEFA SANNEHIRN AND WINE”The Shepherd’s Dog” (Sub Pop) Sam Beam doesn’t sound like a loner anymore. The quietly enigmatic gentle-voiced songwriter behind Iron and Wine has been publicly teaching himself how to work with a band: in the studio in collaborations with Calexico and on tour. “The Shepherd’s Dog” is the brilliant culmination of his experiments… Most of the songs are folky or countryish interweaving banjo and pedal-steel guitar with acoustic guitar picking; a few link Appalachian modes to Eastern music. And every track works up to hypnotic intricacies. Nothing is ruled out: electric instruments peek in and the producer Brian Deck toys with the echoes and hide-and-seek sounds of dub reggae. “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” trades folkiness for something like funk hinting at War and Talking Heads. Beam’s nonlinear lyrics delve into memory and transformation war and faith. “The Devil Never Sleeps” which chugs ahead like old piano-boogie rock and roll conjures up “a city full of fathers in their Army clothes” where “someone bet a dollar that my daddy wasn’t coming home.
The John Butler Trio live reviews | Music | Arts & Entertainment …
Times nline – Sep 24, 2007
Butler played no electricinstruments but ranged across a variety of acoustic and national steelguitars as well as a harmonica a ukelele and even a banjo on Better Thanthe lead track on the trio’s estimable fourth album Grand National. html”–>Shannon Birchall meanwhile divided his time between electric and uprightbass giving the trio a light rootsy touch that deftly incorporatedelements of folk and Celtic music with a strong reggae lilt on many of thesongs. Not the next pop phenomenon but definitely a word-of-gig sensation.
Grandmaster of reggae keeps audience under his spell
Irish Independent – Sep 24, 2007
But Perry isn’t taking maybe for an answer: “I said do you believe in God?” he roars. Freighted with references to Zion the Almighty and Babylon such back-and-forths are grist to Perry’s performance. The way he sees it reggae is more than music. It’s a lightening rod to the divine. He comes not to sing but to preach. In the reggae pantheon Perry might be described as the anti-Bob Marley. He’s never enjoyed much in the way of a commercial career yet as a songwriter and producer he casts a long shadow.
MIA – Gig Reviews – Music – Entertainment – smh.com.au
Sydney Morning Herald – Sep 24, 2007
In fact she seems tothrive on it. A description of her life and music is inevitablylike one of those old movie montages in which a plane zigzagsacross a map from continent to distant continent. She left SriLanka at the age of nine a refugee from an ethnic civil war that’sstill roiling and discovered hip-hop in a London housing project. After art school in Britain she began making music that was simpleand handmade but had a far-reaching ambition with flirty yetbrutally evocative lyrics set against whip-crack electro beatsdancehall reggae and Brazilian baile funk. Her debut album Arular (2005) sold a modest 129000copies but hit a critical jackpot both in the mainstream press andthe blogosphere. For her follow-up Kala released earlier thismonth the original strategy was the conventional one: to pair withbrand-name producers and shoot for pop hits… A description of her life and music is inevitablylike one of those old movie montages in which a plane zigzagsacross a map from continent to distant continent. She left SriLanka at the age of nine a refugee from an ethnic civil war that’sstill roiling and discovered hip-hop in a London housing project. After art school in Britain she began making music that was simpleand handmade but had a far-reaching ambition with flirty yetbrutally evocative lyrics set against whip-crack electro beatsdancehall reggae and Brazilian baile funk. Her debut album Arular (2005) sold a modest 129000copies but hit a critical jackpot both in the mainstream press andthe blogosphere. For her follow-up Kala released earlier thismonth the original strategy was the conventional one: to pair withbrand-name producers and shoot for pop hits. But things did not goaccording to plan. Instead the album became by necessity and bychoice another restless far-flung journey.
Lost & Found – CD Reviews – Music – Entertainment – smh.com.au
Sydney Morning Herald – Sep 24, 2007
f these two Marley’scombination of mainstream rock promotional savvy and genuinelygreat songs made him the one legitimate superstar. Marley has spawned a lot of clones and Shasha Marley from Ghanasounds like the master. He has the same slightly husky vocaldelivery and called in The Wailers and Junior Marvin to providebacking instrumentation. So a track like Eagerness soundsdisturbingly like Marley’s Jammin’ and Buum Buum WaaWaa echoes Marley’s War.
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