WOMEX 2009
| AFROPOP WORLDWIDE GOES TO COPENHAGEN FOR WOMEX 2009, PART 1 Every year WOMEX attracts some 3,000 individuals working in the world music field--artists, record label people, festival presenters, media personnel and others. And we always return loaded with cool CDs new to us, interviews with artists we've never met before, live concert recordings, etc. From some of the three dozen showcases featured at WOMEX this year, we'll hear Hasna el Bacharia (Algeria/France), Kenge Kenge (Kenya), Choc Quib Town (Colombia), Addis Acoustic Project (Ethiopia), Staff Benda Bilili (Congo), SpokFrevo Orquestra (Brazil) and others. There is so much good stuff we'll do WOMEX, Part 2 later in the season. |  | ||
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AFROPOP GOES TO COPENHAGEN FOR WOMEX 2009
By Sean Barlow
Sean Barlow is Executive Producer of Afropop Worldwide on public radio. Directly below is Sean's Report, followed by a rich set of links on key artists, and ending with even more fabulous photos. Take your time and enjoy!
WOMEX 2009 Photos © Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones
Over the course of 15 years, WOMEX, the World Music Expo, has created a tribe who playfully call themselves WOMEXicans.
This year WOMEX attracted over 2,800 delegates in the world music biz—artists, record labels, artist agents, festival presenters, national arts councils, national public radio networks, journalists, media companies and others. We trekked to Copenhagen which treated us to their brand new, state-of-the-art, Copenhagen Concert Center. On first glance from a distance, the Center appears as a glowing, pulsing cobalt blue huge cube. You think someone put something in your herring!
The main attraction at WOMEX of course were some 30 artist showcases—artists from Algeria, Turkey, China, Nigeria, Senegal, Italy, Mali, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, France and let’s not forget Denmark.
For your trusty Afropop reporter and others, Ladies and Gentlemen, time to start your engines! For four days, I worked so hard in doing recordings and artist interviews as well as networking on the expo floor, etc. that I never even got to see central Copenhagen. I’m told it’s very pretty.
The MO for WOMEXicans is dashing between four different stages to see parts of several 45 minute sets. And then when one artist really sweeps you away, you stop to marvel and soak it in. The headline from WOMEX 2009 is….drum roll please….Africa ruled the day! The artists who blew many people away were Hasna el Bacharia from Algeria, Kenge Kenge from Kenya, and Staff Benda Bilili from Congo who won the prestigious WOMEX 2009 award for artist excellence. Now of course I’m biased, but looking around at the concerts of the hard-to-please European and North American festival presenters, these artists were the hits. Scoring big with these folks means offers of gigs in 2010 and 2011 can roll in, which in many cases means feeding large extended families back home.
By Sean Barlow
Sean Barlow is Executive Producer of Afropop Worldwide on public radio. Directly below is Sean's Report, followed by a rich set of links on key artists, and ending with even more fabulous photos. Take your time and enjoy!
WOMEX 2009 Photos © Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones
Over the course of 15 years, WOMEX, the World Music Expo, has created a tribe who playfully call themselves WOMEXicans.
This year WOMEX attracted over 2,800 delegates in the world music biz—artists, record labels, artist agents, festival presenters, national arts councils, national public radio networks, journalists, media companies and others. We trekked to Copenhagen which treated us to their brand new, state-of-the-art, Copenhagen Concert Center. On first glance from a distance, the Center appears as a glowing, pulsing cobalt blue huge cube. You think someone put something in your herring!The main attraction at WOMEX of course were some 30 artist showcases—artists from Algeria, Turkey, China, Nigeria, Senegal, Italy, Mali, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, France and let’s not forget Denmark.
For your trusty Afropop reporter and others, Ladies and Gentlemen, time to start your engines! For four days, I worked so hard in doing recordings and artist interviews as well as networking on the expo floor, etc. that I never even got to see central Copenhagen. I’m told it’s very pretty.The MO for WOMEXicans is dashing between four different stages to see parts of several 45 minute sets. And then when one artist really sweeps you away, you stop to marvel and soak it in. The headline from WOMEX 2009 is….drum roll please….Africa ruled the day! The artists who blew many people away were Hasna el Bacharia from Algeria, Kenge Kenge from Kenya, and Staff Benda Bilili from Congo who won the prestigious WOMEX 2009 award for artist excellence. Now of course I’m biased, but looking around at the concerts of the hard-to-please European and North American festival presenters, these artists were the hits. Scoring big with these folks means offers of gigs in 2010 and 2011 can roll in, which in many cases means feeding large extended families back home.
One of the first groups that caught my attention was the Afro-Colombian Choc Quib Town. These 20 somethings were wired! They told me they were fresh from gigging in India. Now that’s impressive. Their songs proudly proclaim their pride in being from ’s
You maybe remember we introduced you to Hasna El Bacharia from our reportage from the Musique Métisses festival in I invited the Kenyan Luo roots pop group Kenge Kenge into my impromptu hotel room recording studio where of course I asked them to sing their international break-through hit, “Obama For Change,” which was one of the first praise big praise songs for candidate Obama, whose father was also from the Luo ethnic group. The song went viral. Big time. They performed the song on a traditional fiddle (orutu) and lyre (nyatiti). But nothing prepared me for their energy on stage. They had a boisterous pumping sound of ten or so musicians including the orutu, nyatiti, and Luo flute. And the choreography went from vertical to horizontal and back. Their two female singers charged out into the crowd and ramped them up. I can’t give any specifics but I think Kenge Kenge hit a home run and we’ll be seeing them sometime in 2010.
The crowning moment for WOMEX is always Sunday afternoon when the annual WOMEX award (this year, the 11th annual) is given and then the awardees perform. This year we honored Staff Benda Bilili from Kinshasa, Congo. When they rolled off their bus at WOMEX, all wearing bright red team jackets, I shouted out “Mbote!” (greeting in Lingala) and they beamed and we shook hands and we talked about their home town.The logo of Staff Benda Bilili is a wheelchair with wings, and that pretty much says it all. Most of the musicians are polio survivors who—through talent, determination and luck—have gone from the streets of Kinshasa to international celebrity. They are wowing Afropop fans with their concerts all throughout Europe. And their first release on Crammed Discs, Très Très Forte is, well, very very strong. One distinctive thing about Staff Benda Bilili’s sound is the one-stringed satongé, an electric fiddle created from a tin can by 18-year-old Roger Landu Satongé.
On stage at WOMEX, when Staff Benda Bilili were presented the award—a short stout statue of a woman representing fertility—each of the members kissed the statue and raised it above their heads and then passed it on to the band mate next to them. They then charged into a joyous set of Kinshasa rumba and soukous, dancing on stage in their wheelchairs singing their hearts out as the Satongé sorcerer elevated the sound with his high pitched, transfixing solos. Wow! What a finale! (Can the North Americans all chant: “We want Bilili! We want Bilili!” And then tell the person who books your local world music venue you want SBB.)
There are many other artists whom I enjoyed but I’ve just focused on my top favorites. No slight intended but I will mention a few more here. The SpocFrevo Oquestra from Every night a DJ put on a dance party that went to 3 in the morning. The huge DJ hit at WOMEX 2009 was Samy Ben Redjeb of the label Analog Africa. This guy is obsessed! He travels all over West Africa to find vinyl and then goes back home to pick the best of the best for his compilations. That night at WOMEX, Samy played afrobeat, afrofunk, cavacah and agbadja classics from the 70s in
At the end of that evening, though the music had stopped, nobody wanted to go home. Most people kept hanging out. And I looked around the room at my fellow WOMEXicans and thought, what a marvelous community I’m so happy to be part of. Whatever field we work in—managing artists, creating music festivals, making media—we do it with passion and for the most we’re pretty damn good at what we do. One the most satisfying things is seeing the 20-somethings at WOMEX, so excited about a project they are launching. That gives me confidence that the worldly art of connecting inspired artists with the audiences we know and the new audiences of the future will continue. Insh’Allah…
WOMEX will return to Copenhagen next year at the end of October, right around Halloween. It’s shockingly expensive but, as I reminded everyone, they do have a queen to take care of. You can follow the news on www.womex.com.
Starting on Thursday December 3rd, you can hear “Afropop Worldwide’s WOMEX 2009 Report” on-demand through www.afropop.org Speaking of which, please use the Share button above to share this story and photos with your friends. All armchair WOMEXicans are welcome!
Thanks to Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones for his photos.(More photos can be found below artists' links)
You can catch a WOMEX video walkthrough by our colleague Michal Shapiro, Music Director for our partner LinkTV.
Artists' Links
Choc Quib Town: One of Colombia’s most electrifying hip-hop groups. Their innovative sound fuses funk, Latin rhythms, reggae and electronic music.
Official SiteMySpace
Link to buy “Somos pacifico” on Amazon
“Somos Pacifico” YouTube Video
“De donde vengo yo” YouTube Video
“Oro” YouTube Video
SpokFrevo Orquestra: Recife's most amazing big band beats time to the rhythm of the Northeast Brazil carnivals. SpokFrevo Orquestra’s first album, Passo de Anjo, was considered by industry critics the beginning of a new era in the history of frevo.
MySpaceLink to buy “SpokFrevo” on Amazon
YouTube Video One
YouTube Video Two
YouTube Video Three
Hasna El Becharia: Hasna El Becharia is a remarkable Gnawa musician from Algeria. Known as the Gnawa Poetess, Hasna's work pushes into dimensions far beyond the scope of Algerian music.
Official SiteMySpace
Link to buy “Hasna El Becharia” on Amazon
YouTube Video One
YouTube Video Two
YouTube Video Three
Kenge Kenge: The band works with traditional Luo instruments--from which the benga beat originally drew its sound--using the orutu (one-stringed fiddle) and the nyangile (gong), plus percussion, drums, horn and flute. Kenge Kenge brings together melodies and rhythms based on traditional music to create songs on current topics in their own Luo language.
Unofficial site YouTube Video One
Staff Benda Bilili: A group of paraplegic street musicians who live in and around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo, Staff Benda Bilili makes music of astonishing power and beauty. The band's mesmerizing rumba-rooted grooves, overlaid with vibrant vocals, remind you at times of Cuban nonchalance, at other times of the Godfather of Soul himself. You can hear echoes of old-school rhythm and blues, then reggae, then no-holds-barred funk.
Official siteMySpace
Link to buy “Tres Forte” on Amazon
YouTube Video One
YouTube Video Two
YouTube Video Three
Analog Africa – Dj Samy Ben Redjeb
Official siteMySpace
Link to buy “Legends of Benin” on Amazon
Link to buy “Orchestre Poly-rhythmo de Cotonou” on Amazon
More photos
via AFROPOP
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