Hugh Masekela and Western/South African Afropop

Posted on Jul 09, 2010 07:50 pm
Quincysan
http://www.unitedmusicians.info
Contributor Since: Nov 11, 2007

Uh, so this thread title sounds like an African Studies thesis paper but I'm just throwing out a line to see if anyone has spent some time listening to some awesome western/south African artists. As you can probably tell by my avatar's frequent metamorphosis; I'm really into blues with African roots (Chicago's electric blues movement was fine, but that's not the heart of the blues if you ask me). Blues that doesn't necessarily take heed to the 12 bar cookie cutter. Anywho, I used to have this great compilation by Putomayo called "From Mali to Memphis" that had some poppy African music in it and when I watched Paul Simon's Graceland DVD live from Africa (Thanks to Rob for cluing me in on it's existence) I got a chance to hear two more great afropop songs both written by Hugh Masekela. "Nelson (Bring Him Back Home)" was performed by Hugh Masekela and "South African Freedom Song" was performed by Miriam Makeba. I've been toying with pop arrangements of Delta style guitars, and I think Masekela's songwriting style would sound AWESOME over it. I'm looking for further inspiration in the vein of Afropop/Afrobeat (I've spent more than enough time with Delta blues style artists). This is pretty much a re-iteration of something I posted about 6 months ago:

Here's some tasty tunes in the ballpark of what I'm looking for, looking forward to any additional artists I might not have heard...

Unfortunately I can't find an uncut version of "South African Freedom Song", but this clip will give you an idea of what I'm looking for:

Masekela really killed it with Paul Simon on "Mandela", if you haven't heard this performance you might like it:




This was in my last post but if anyone missed it, this is exactly the sort of song I'm looking for.
www.nuttymp3.com/mp3/666054

Fela Kuti is a little more on the jazz side of things but he's worth mentioning because he made AWESOME jazz (and some that I just don't get...and I very rarely say that sort of thing, hah):




I do like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and I have several of their CD's; but it's hard to draw inspiration from a group so unique. I don't think it would be possible to draw too much inspiration from Ladysmith Black Mambazo without sounding like Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

I'm a little surprised that there aren't blues artists embracing some of these songwriting styles. The 12 bar thing is completely dead to me...honestly, I can't stand to hear most 12 bar progressions any more. Everything is so predictable. Why not take the roots of what make blues great, combine it with a little Western/South African Afropop style songwriting, and have a scrawny white geek from Kansas City, Missouri sing it? Sounds like a plan to me...or a really bad episode of American Idol, hahahaha

If you read my post about funeral doom metal last week...double points if you can find a Funeral Doom/Afropop hybrid, lol

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