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Travel
Durban and the Zulu Coast
The first thing that hits you when arriving in Durban from other, more temperate cities in South Africa is the humidity: hot, wet and sticky. But the weather isn’t the only thing that sets Durban apart.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Fela Kuti
The founder and king of Afro-beat, Fela’s legend continues to grow long after his death from AIDS-related complications in 1997.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
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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African Legends
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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African Legends
Dolly Rathebe
Dolly Rathebe was one of the most influential singers in South Africa’s booming jazz scene of the ’40s and ’50s, singing in the hip clubs of Joburg’s mixed Sophiatown neighborhood.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Culture Musical Club
East Africa’s distinctive taarab music is unique to the Swahili coast. But the music and culture’s true homeland is the island of Zanzibar, and taraab’s best-known practitioners are the elegant and accomplished members of the great Culture Musical Club.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Ismael Lô
Ismael Lô is one of Senegal’s great voices, a powerful and versatile performer who came of age alongside Youssou N’Dour and others during the m'balax explosion of the late ’70s and early ’80s.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Mabulu
The Mozambican band Mabulu unites up-and-coming young rappers and singers with master musicians from the golden age of marrabenta, Mozambique’s classic pop sound of the ’60s and ’70s.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Thione Seck
Thione Ballago Seck descends from a famous line of griots, the traditional praise singers of the Wolof people of Senegal. Simply put, he has one of the most beautiful voices in all of Africa.
By Tom Pryor
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African Legends
Remmy Ongala
Remmy Ongala is one of East Africa’s true superstars. He and his band Super Matimila blend elements of Congolese soukous with Kenya’s guitar-heavy benga music into heady brew he calls ubongo.
By Tom Pryor
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World Music Features
Thomas Mapfumo
Thomas Mapfumo is one of the few undisputed legends of African music. He merged rock ’n’ roll with traditional Shona music, and emerged as the voice of his beloved Zimbabwe.
By Tom Pryor
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Travel
The Sound Of Sufism Prayers Ring Out In Fes
Every June since 1994, music fans from around the globe have been flocking to Morocco for the annual Fes Sacred Music Festival.
By Tom Pryor
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World Music Features
Boom Pam
Israeli surf-rockers Boom Pam are proud to wear their schmaltz on their sleeves, taking their name from a 1969 pop hit that’s become a perennial favorite at Israeli weddings—and recording a version of their own that went straight to the top of their homeland’s charts last year.
By Tom Pryor
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World Music Features
Gogol Bordello
Not many artists can claim to have invented a whole new genre, but Eugene Hutz and Gogol Bordello did just that, when their drunken, manic, Iggy Pop-meets-Taraf de Haidouks parties outgrew their Lower East Side origins and gave the world "Gypsy Punk." Now, nearly a decade later, a host of Balkan- and Gypsy-inspired rockers have sprung up in their wake, even as Hutz and company branch out into film and beyond.
By Tom Pryor
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Top 10 World Music CDs
8. Ticklah
Ticklah vs. Axelrod
Easy Star Records
By Tom Pryor
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Top 10 World Music CDs
6. Various Artists
The Roots Of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias Of Peru
Barbès Records
By Tom Pryor
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World Music Features
Toumast
Move over Tinariwen—the next wave of Tuareg desert rockers is here. Hailing from Mali, Moussa Ag Keyna and Aminatou Goumar—known together, with producer Dan Lévy, as Toumast—have just released their domestic debut Ishumar on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. A freedom fighter-turned-rock rebel, Ag Keyna recounts how his time in the Tuareg military camps in Libya provided the grist for the band’s hypnotic and haunting music.
By Tom Pryor
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Europe
Various Artists
B.I.P.P.: French Synth Wave 1979/85
Everloving
By Tom Pryor
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Greater Latin America
3 Na Massa
3 Na Massa
Nublu
By Tom Pryor
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Africa
Barry Van Zyl & The Bo Kaap Collective
Goema Music From Cape Town South Africa
ARC Music
By Tom Pryor
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