World Music Matters

One of France's leading Afrobeat bands, the Fanga collective is inspired by Nigeria's Fela Kuti but determined not to be a poor relation. Singer Korbo talks to RFI about giving their own electro-Mandekan twist to the genre on their new album Kaleidoscope.

One of France's leading Afrobeat bands, the Fanga collective is inspired by Nigeria's Fela Kuti but determined not to be a poor relation. Singer Korbo talks to RFI about giving their own electro-Mandekan twist to the genre on their new album Kaleidoscope.

Korbo was born in Burkina Faso and sings, and raps, in his native Dioula, French and English.

He discovered Afrobeat at his dad's nightclub, where he'd fall asleep to the sounds of  70s groove alongside the French pop of Jo Dassin.

"I preferred the groove, just for my body, just to move," he says.

The eight-piece band knows how to get audiences moving, with a strong brass section, drum and bass, and Korbo's vocals which bring together hip hop and the Mandinka melodies of West African stars like Salif Keita and Oumou Sangaré.

Kaleidoscope takes in a wide range of sounds and rhythms from the African continent, from the ethiojazz-inspired  An Kelen Ye to the Mandika-rich Compréhension. 

Korbo says he wanted the album to represent "every ethnic culture from Africa, from East to West". 

Fanga means strength in Dioula. But not just physical strength.

"I put it in my mind, the power of conviction, to do things," says the singer. "We have to have a mental power to live in this world."

The song [I want to be a] Modern Man asks how we can be truly modern "when people are dying from hunger" explains Korbo adding it's not about having flat screens or smart phones. "I can't say we're modern, I want us to be, but we're not."

An Kelen Ye is about the importance of collective action. "Every great thing on this earth is done by many people working together," says Korbo, "we're nothing alone".

Fanga, a collective that's changed shape several times since it formed in the late 90s,  embodies that philosophy to the full: the current formation is strong and so is the collective groove. 

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Congolese singer "Jupiter" Bonkodji has developed a new Congolese sound, bofenia rock, with his band Okwess International. Taking the country's myriad of traditional rhythms as a base, he uses electric guitar, drums and a punk rock attitude to make music of the future. We take off on their new album Kin Sonic.

Singer Çiğdem Aslan is one of the most accomplished and emotional performers of "Balkan blues" known as rembetiko: songs of exile from Greece and Turkey that grew out of the population exchanges in the aftermath of WW1. We caught up with her at the recent Au Fil des Voix festival in Paris where she showcased her new album A Thousand Cranes.

Singer Çiğdem Aslan is one of the most accomplished and emotional performers of "Balkan blues" known as rembetiko: songs of exile from Greece and Turkey that grew out of the population exchanges in the aftermath of WW1. We caught up with her at the recent Au Fil des Voix festival in Paris where she showcased her new album A Thousand Cranes.

Aslan was raised in Istanbul in a Kurdish family and now lives in London.

"In my Alevi culture, a crane has the role of being a messenger between people. It represents the unity of family," she explains. "And in Japanese culture, referrring to a thousand cranes mythology it represents peace."

The song Tourna (crane in Turkish) exists in both Greek and Turkish says Aslan. "The lyrics are about the effect of being away from your homeland, how destructive it can be to be away from your beloved ones."

As a migratory bird the crane also had special resonance with Aslan's rembetiko repertoire - songs that show the interaction between Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Jewish, Slavic, Arabic, Persian and Kurdish ethnicities.

"The idea was to reflect the journey of rembetiko or smyrneiko school of rembetiko. We're talking about migration, population exchange. And rembetiko also migrated from Anatolia to Greece and it has evolved."

For this second album Aslan chose to explore songs from the 1940s and 50s "because that's when you could hear the changes in the genre very clearly". 

"So we've got more bouzouki and more piano. There are more western sounds because they wanted to eliminate the eastern, Anatolian sounds."

The album was recorded in the renowned AntArt Studio Athens, co-produced and arranged by Nicolaos Baimpas, and an impressive line-up of set and guest musicians. 

And while there are sad songs, we also find tributes to the free-spirited, cheeky mortissas - good-time girls who knew how to enjoy themselves in the 20s and 30s. ("I enjoy myself every night with all the lads and like that I have fun in this vain world" she sings in Mortissa from Kokkinia).

"These characters existed and it's a pleasure for me to tell their stories... to be their voice," says Aslan. "Nowadays you feel like women are under attack even more, so I guess reiterating these songs becomes more meaningful."

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Violons Barbares (Barbaric violins) is a wild and rather wonderful trio from Mongolia, Bulgaria and France. RFI met the two fiddlers and a percussionist at a recent performance at the Musée Guimet in Paris to talk about Balkan melodies, throat singing and above all horse gallop from the Mongolian Steppes.

Franco-Tunisian saxophonist Yacine Boularès brought  French cellist Vincent Segal and American drummer Nasheet Waits on board to record original music that reappropriates the largely forgotten Stambeli repertoire: healing trance music created by the descendants of Sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia.

Franco-Tunisian saxophonist Yacine Boularès brought  French cellist Vincent Segal and American drummer Nasheet Waits on board to record original music that reappropriates the largely forgotten Stambeli repertoire: healing trance music created by the descendants of Sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia.

Their album, Abu Sadiya, is a series of variations on the legend of the eponymous hunter who danced and sang his sorrow in the streets of Tunis, becoming the first musician of Stambeli, and personifying the memory of those slaves.

Singer-songwriter Aurelio Martinez is the leading voice of the Garifuna people - a community descended from escaped African slaves and Caribbean natives. As he releases his fourth album Darandi, he talks to RFI about the International Garifuna project to preserve and promote his people's waning culture.

Girma Bèyènè is one of the most influential arrangers of the golden age of Ethiopian jazz of the 60s and 70s. After three decades in the musical wilderness, the 70-year old crooner is back on stage with the young French ethiojazz band Akalé Wubé, thanks to  Francis Falceto, producer of the mythic Ethiopiques series.