Episode 25: Holiday Desert

Today’s episode of Tropicology is yet another treat for the holiday season. The theme today is psychedelic Africa, but not the Hendrix guitar and James Brown screaming variety. Today we will hear music from the strip of communities living along the Niger river on the southern edge of the Sahara. There is an ancient shared musical culture in this territory, passed from one generation to the next by the class of griot musicians in these communities. The musical culture extends westward from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali to the eastern edges of neighboring Senegal and Guinea. These countries were sufficiently remote to miss out on the first wave of African popular music production. It was the late 1960s before music commercialization reached this region. At this time, music from Europe and America was being heard more frequently in these remote communities, and the sounds of late 60s music were starting to influence local musicians. By the 1970s there was a large group of professional musicians who were eager to play modern commercial music with psychedelic influence, but also with strong connections to the rich local traditions of griot music. 

For me, the results of this particular musical scene are among the most sublime in the history of recorded music. It's another holiday gift from Tropicology.