African

New Arrivals

(view all)
     
    Children of Agape
     
    Thina Simunye
    1st album from this South African children's choir. Making of this album features in the HBO Documentary We Are Together.
    World: African
     
     
    Daddy Mabanza
     
    Historical Acoustic concert
    A double digipack disc package (CD &DVD) featuring a young Congolese student performing with a saxophone, a guitar, a jembe and singing with friends in a live acoustic concert played in London. A nice music based on philosophy, psychology and theology.
    World: African
     
     
    Raivo
     
    Mahabibo
    A jazz style combo featuring piano, Malagasy vocal harmonies, and mixing Malagasy traditional and popular styles with jazz and interesting musical structures.
    World: African
     
     
    In The Tradition
     
    The Tradition Continues !
    A fusion of straight-ahead Jazz and Afrikan Rhythms.
    World: African
     
     
    Various Artists
     
    Mwoyochema kuZimbabwe vol. 1
    Zimbabwean marimba music, some electric guitar music, recorded mostly in America.
    World: African
     
     
    Various Artists
     
    Mwoyochema kuZimbabwe vol. 2
    Traditional mbira music from Zimbabwe, some acoustic guitar.
    World: African
     
     
    Rocksta Mjonase
     
    Tshe tshe EP
    A rare combination of genres to produce a sensational electronic release, from easy listening to deep and tribal house mixes, gospel delivered in a silver platter get your grip on, feel South African house scene on the rise.
    World: African
     
     
    EternalFireHoly
     
    Jesus Holy Truth ..Is ..Choice Not A
    Love , Joy , Truth , humor, Respect and FOCUS are among the good feelings , please enjoy the originality and creativity
    World: African
     
     
    Various Artists
     
    The African Mamas: Live from Royal Theatre Carré Amsterdam
    Experience the African sound! Ten women with beautiful voices will take you on a trip through their life. A life which touches us, sparkles and inspires. And so does their music!
    World: African
     
     
    Compilation, Various Artists
     
    Beauty Crowds Me: an Homage to Beauty
    This offering of Beauty - may it touch what we love and what challenges us.. sadness, grief, despair..more deeply, with tenderness, compassion and shared humanity.
    World: African
     
    Scroll backwards to see new arrivals
    Scroll forward to see new arrivals

    Top Albums

    (view all)
    Enyenison Enkama(Roman Diaz, Angel Guerrero, Pedro Martinez)
    Ecobio Enyenison
    Some of the finest musicians in New York City at the crossroads of Africa and Cuba. Afro-Cuban Folkloric, Abakua, Fusion, World Music Recommended if you like Irakere,Yoruba Andabo, El Ven tu, Roman Diaz, Pedrito Martinez, Lazaro Ros, Synthesis, Mezcla
    African secret societies played 
a formative role in Cuban cultural history. During the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries, no large kingdoms controlled Nigeria and Cameroon's 
multilingual Cross River basin. Instead, each settlement had its own 
lodge of the initiation society called Ékpè or Mgbè (leopard), which was in 
effect the highest indigenous authority. Ékpè/ Mgbè lodges ruled local 
communities while also managing regional and long distance trade. Cross 
River Africans, enslaved and forcibly brought to the Americas, 
became known there as ‘Carabalí’, after the port of Calabar from which many embarked. Evidence of Carabalí cultural practice is found today in Salvador Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Santiago de Cuba. However, only in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba did Carabalí leaders reorganize their Ékpè clubs into a 
mutual-aid society called Abakuá, a term likely derived from the Àbàkpà community of Calabar. 

Abakuá ritual 
languages and practices became a unifying charter for transplanted Africans and their successors; its ideas and expressions became foundational to Cuba’s 
urban life and music. Each lodge is a school that trains members in the performance of ritual theater and visual arts, as well as jurisprudence, or the legal codes of social organization. An analysis of Cuban popular music reveals ‘Carabalí’ influence in all genres, including danzón, rumba, son and timba. Cuba’s most famous 20th century painter, Wifredo Lam, incorporated Abakuá signs into his works, confirming this fraternity as a cultural symbol of the nation itself. In 2001, Nigerian Ékpè and Cuban Abakuá met to display their related traditions, likely for the first time since separation through slavery some 200 years ago. The mutual excitement of this summit meeting, held at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, led to several further meetings, each incrementally larger. When the Obong (paramount ruler) of Calabar visited the USA in 2003, the Abakuá who arrived to greet him received invitations to visit Calabar. In 2004 the Governor of Cross River State, his excellency Donald Duke, arranged for two Abakuá and me to visit an Ékpè festival in Calabar, where the Cubans won the hearts and respect of Ékpè leaders. In 2007, the Musée Quai Branly of Paris invited two groups, one Nigerian Ékpè, and another Cuban Abakuá, to perform onstage for a series of five concerts exploring common themes in the music, chants, body masks, and visual signs of each group. The conversation that unfolded onstage demonstrated to both groups the significance of their links. This recording by Proyecto Enyenisón Enkama is a brilliant effort to continue that conversation, using the same form in which both Ékpè and Abakuá have recorded their own histories: ritual phrases with symbolic rhythms. Members of Proyecto Enyenison Enkama have been leaders in the conversation with their African counterparts at each stage in the process, which certainly began before the first encounter in 2001. In 1997, the Havana rumba group Yoruba Andabo’s recording of ‘Enyenison Enkama 2’ (arranged and chanted by ‘Roman’ Díaz’) became the basis for the Brooklyn encounter; it included an historic chant evoking Efí Ebutón, the first Cuban lodge, that Nigerians interpreted as identifying ‘Obutong’, an important Calabar community. In 1999, Angel Guerrero led the creation of ‘Ibiono’ in Havana, the first full length CD devoted entirely to Abakuá ritual chanting that evoked historic lineages in Cuba and the foundation of Ékpè in Africa. Following this trajectory, in ‘Ecobio Enyenison’, Cuban Abakuá chant their history and proclaim their faith in their inherited traditions. The phrases of each composition describe sacred geographies (maps) of West African source communities, as well as histories (epic deeds) of the African founders. By evoking these inherited chants, members of ‘Proyecto Enyenison Ekama’ praise their teachers, as well as all those Abakuá leaders of the past who maintained their faith in the teachings of those Carabalí migrants who established Abakuá. By chanting within the context of contemporary arrangements played by vanguard jazz musicians, they celebrate a cultural victory of continuity and evolution across time and space, as well as offer a vision of the expansion of their traditions into the future. Dr. Ivor Miller African Studies Center Boston University Enyenison Enkama: Roman Diaz, Angel Guerrero, and Pedro Martinez Credits Executive Producer: Pedro Martinez Produced By Roman Diaz, Angel Guerrero, & Pedro Martinez Recorded by: Pedro Martinez Recorded at: PMP Studio INC Union Cuty, NJ and Roman Diaz's Studio Newark, NJ Mixed by: Pedro Martinez Mastered By Luis Güell at Digital Boulevard Audio Artwork and Graphic Design: Jose Orbein/ Elton Boy Design Works All Musical Arrangements: Pedro Martinez All Lyrics and Compositions by: Roman Diaz, Angel Guerrero & Pedro Martinez Except for Danza Ñañiga by Ernesto Lecuona and Paquito D'Rivera A&R: Ivor Miller, Alexandre Jomaron, & Onel Mulet Special Guests Paquito D'Rivera & Steve Turré Musicians Onel Mulet Sax and Flute, Oriente Lopez Piano, Ariacne Trujillo Piano, Axel Tosca Piano, Philbert Armenteros Lead Vocals, Ruben Rodriguez Bass, Panagiotis Andreou Bass, Alvaro Benavides Bass, Dennis Hernandez Trumpet, Eddie Venegas Violin & Trombone, Willie Alvarez Trombone, Edmar Castaneda Harp
    World: African
     
    Children of Agape Choir
    We Are Together Soundtrack
    World: African
     
    Loide
    Loide, Live at Bohemian Caverns
    World: African
     
    Marcus Strickland
    Idiosyncrasies
    World: African
     
    Aurelio Martinez
    Garifuna Soul
    World: African
     

    Editor's Picks

    (view all)

      Artists You May Know

      (view all)
      Thomas Mapfumo
      Mr. Music (Africa)
      World: African
       
      Antibalas
      Vancouver Jazz Festival - Vancouver, BC - 6.26.03
      World: African
       
      Nyanyo Addo
      The Tranceformer
      World: African
       
      Thomas Mapfumo
      Chimurenga Rebel/Manhungetunge
      World: African
       

      Newsletter Sign-up

      Top Songs

      (view all)
      1.
      We Are Together (Thina Simunye)
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      2.
      Pigogo (Peacock song)
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      3.
      Happy Day
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      4.
      Enva Ekhaya
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      5.
      Ketheyako
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      6.
      Satane
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      7.
      Baba Wethu
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      8.
      Homeless / Sithi Shwele - Live in New York (feat. Paul Simon)
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      9.
      Thina Sonke (feat. Soweto Gospel Choir)
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African
       
       
      10.
      Vela (feat. Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
      Children of Agape Choir
      World: African