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Boubacar Traoré
The attention paid to the droning Malian blues guitar resurrected the career of Boubacar Traoré, a veteran singer/guitarist who’d been a star on Malian radio at the dawn of its early 1960s independence.
By Bruce Miller
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Bi Kidude
Zanzibar’s legendary Bi Kidude is one of a kind: a 90-something performer, storyteller and musical repository who’s also a living link back to the roots of contemporary Swahili pop music and the great taarab singer Siti Binti Saad.
By Tom Pryor
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Brenda Fassie
Dubbed “The Madonna of the Townships” by Time Magazine, South African singer Brenda Fassie was one of the most beloved, controversial and ultimately tragic figures of contemporary South Africa.
By Tom Pryor
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Salif Keita
Salif Keita is one of the most recognized voices in Afropop music. No doubt the “African Caruso” would add, “But I am the greatest,” and few would deign to disagree.
By Tom Terrell
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Khaled
Raï began as a rural Algerian folk music that moved to the city and got streetwise. In Khaled’s hands in the 1980s, it was modernized and soon went on an international journey.
By Banning Eyre
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Miriam Makeba
In 1967, Miriam Makeba became the first African to have a U.S. hit single, when “Pata Pata” (which she’d recorded in 1959) shot up the charts.
By Chris Nickson
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Manu Dibango
For over 30 years Manu Dibango’s music has sounded as powerful and appealing to Americans as it does in Europe or Africa.
By Chris Nickson
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Oliver Mtukudzi
Oliver Mtukudzi, or “Tuku,” uses music as a vehicle for expressing his message, singing in his native Shona language or English, setting it to a blend of Southern African mbira, mbaqanga, Korekore and jit.
By Craig Harris
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Orchestra Baobab
Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab—formed in 1970 and officially disbanded in 1987—has been riding again since 2001, having recorded their first new album in more than 20 years.
By Banning Eyre
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Ladysmith Black Mambazo
By the time this Zulu a cappella group first went international, appearing on Paul Simon’s Graceland album and tour in 1986, they were already veteran hitmakers at home.
By Chris Nickson
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Thomas Mapfumo
Mapfumo has endured the wrath of colonial powers and his country's current leader, Robert Mugabe. His music supported the revolutionaries who brought independence, and challenges its present despot.
By Chris Nickson
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