Playlist: Afro and Arabic Funk #1

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Many of the tracks in this globetrotting playlist were initially kept back to include as highlights in our eclectic rolling Monday Morning Brew Playlist. Instead, sat together in a folder, a high-energy playlist began to look like a more promising way forward and maybe even a series. Although I haven’t covered every track in the text below, there are Bandcamp links throughout, so seek them out.

Also available on Apple Music here.

An early compilation track from Portland, Oregon’s Sahel Sounds opens the door with a track from their Music from Saharan Cellphones series…essentially music found on memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert – listened to on tinny speakers and shared via Bluetooth transfer, these tracks eventually found there was here thanks to these fine labels.

Reissued on the UK’s Mr Bongo is Keleya, an organ lead, afro-funk bomb with Moussa in full James Brown effect that was originally released as a 7” by Ivory Coast label SID in 1974; music from their Mr Bongo Record Club, Vol 1 also features. Also released on a UK label, Soundway Records, is a track from their generous treasure trove of East African rare grooves – Kenya Special: Selected East African Recordings from the 1970s & ‘80s.

More recent releases include music from one of the Afrobeat founders, Orlando Julius, joined here by The Heliocentrics for Jaiyede Afro, released on Strut in 2014. Also from Strut is Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids (We Be All Africans). Some other well-known names crop up, including jazz drummer Chico Hamilton and a track from his 1965 album El Chico that features his regular reed player, Japanese altoist Sadao Watanabe, guitarist Gabor Szabo and more. The mighty Nigerian drummer Tony Allen (another Afrobeat founding father) also makes an appearance with a track from Rejoice, featuring the late South African trumpet player Hugh Masekela. This album, reissued as a special edition in 2020, was produced by Nick Gold, who also produced The Buena Vista Social Club.

We recently reviewed Ahmed Ben Ali’s ‘Subhana’, which was released on the excellent German label Habibi Funk Records. In 2021, they shared some more of their staff favourites on Habibi Funk 015: An eclectic selection of music from the Arab world, part 2, a compilation featuring music that historically never existed as a unified musical genre – a collection of nichey pearls and often overlooked artists.

Some tracks take the foot off the accelerator, such as the Malombo Jazz Makers, Molouma‘s sub-Saharan African blues and an upbeat swaying number from the late Afro-Jazz icon and Cameroonian musician and song-writer Manu Dibango.

There’s also a gorgeous psychedelic number from The Fabulous Three, who, over just two years, recorded everything from Reggae to Spiritual Jazz to Psychedelic Soul.

Dig in.

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