Golden Afrique

To welcome in the new year, here's the opposite of snow. Don't get me wrong, I like snow. It's nice seeing London all covered in white, and there's much satisfaction to be had in the journalistic creativity put into such unexpected headlines as 'Snow Causes Travel Chaos'. But these are small pleasures.

Sunshine. Ah, sweet hot sunshine. Think of cycling in a t-shirt... cold beers in the park... the smell of barbeques... bronzed skin... the sound of crickets... lying with your eyes closed on the beach. Let's face it, if sunshine is round the corner, snow better pull up those shorts and jog on.

The bitch is though, sunshine ain't round the corner. It's about 4 months away, punks. So if you need a little sunshine advance these tunes might help. They're off an album that I listen to an astounding amount considering I barely understand a damn word being sung. Golden Afrique is a totally joyful compilation of west African pop from 1971-1983. The guitars chirrup, the trumpets swing, the syncopated rhythms shuffle and hop, and the voices soar. In short, it's like tipping your head to one side, raising an arm, and pouring a large jug of high-proof sunshine into that lug-hole of yours.

I know very little about these two artists. Bébé Manga is a Cameroonian singer, and Ernesto Djédjé was an Ivorian who pioneered a musical style rather wonderfully called 'ziglibithy'... and that's about as much as I can tell you. 2010 should really be the year that I crack into African music, because from the little I've heard there's some absolutely magical stuff to be discovered.

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You can buy Golden Afrique Vol. 1 from Amazon