Episode 147: West African Pop

My theme today has been one of the legacy staples of the Tropicology playlist, but somewhat neglected of late… this will be a return engagement with early West African Pop music from the 60s and 70s. I find that there are two distinct musical cultures in West Africa… the four countries farthest East, which are NIgeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana, have strong local traditions that shape their collective music scene, with heavy focus on drums and a shared heritage of sounds evolving from highlife music. The English colonial presence in Ghana and Nigeria helped to set this region apart, and this area was also historically distinct from the cultural influences of the ancient Malian Empire that can be seen in other parts of West Africa. Today I am going to focus on that other part of West Africa, a region stretching from Ivory Coast in the East up to Senegal in the northwest, including the landlocked nations of Mali and Burkina Faso. This area is predominantly French speaking and they share a love for latin music, which has always been a strong influence on this musical culture. This area does reveal the cultural influence of the ancient Malian Empire, particularly in the tradition of griot musicians. This part of Africa never generated a musical style that would become popular throughout Africa, like highlife, afrobeat, or soukous. At the same time, this was the only part of Africa where ancient local folk forms of music have been able to thrive in the modern era. That is the West African Pop I’m going to play today; latin influenced music with ancient roots from the Western half of West Africa.