NEW WORLD

AFRICA

OLD WORLD (inc Asia, Arabia)

African Discographies

Greetings, Platterbugs!

Updated 1 May 2026

New Music

Kareyce Fotso with Gwà, from Cameroun

Digital only roots music from Colombia: "Yo soy Alba Nelly Mina"

Falatô by Massa Dembele, from Burkina Faso

Mira Kendô: a pop group featuring kora, from Lisbon

Marco Tiara recommends some
Lebanese music compilations, with proceeds going to help the people of Lebanon who are getting the full Gaza treatment from the genocidal Zionists

Marco's Hive Mind has also backed this effort by releasing a rousing pay-what-you-like cassette of Gnaoua music by Maalem Abdelrazak El Moustakim

and just in, another Sufi trance cassette with all proceeds going to Lebanese relief

Disco/pop with Rai elements from 1980s Mauritania on Maghreb K7 Club

Mississippi records reissue of Bulayo: Guitar Songs From Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and DR Congo recordings by John Low (previously on Original Music);
their current newsletter features an interview with John Kitime, Tanzanian guitarist and authority on the history of Tanzanian music; the next issue will feature an interview with John Low about his adventures putting together the East African guitar recordings. Subscribe on their website

Acid Jazz brings out another rare Poly-Rythmo compilation from Albarika stores

Champeta Palenquera single from Louis Towers y Colombiafrica: "Reo de tu Amor"

and hot platters for the dancefloor, with some wicked champeta remixes, featuring Bopol, Viviana Torres, and Son Palenque

Coming May 8: Listening party for los Orientales de Paramonga & their psychedelic Peruvian cumbia

Stunning gypsy flamenco from Titi Robin, coming May 8

I'd review the new Afro-Brazil comp from Putumayo but I just cannot bear to post their putrid artwork on this page!
Also the hype says it is music from the streets of Salvador da Bahia but I do not believe any of the artists are actually from there...

Video

Via New Dakar Sound channel: remastered Thione Seck concert

from Luke Batarang: documentary of the Pico sound system culture of Colombia, with a lot of African music in the mix

Son House and Buddy Guy on television, New York, 1968

On Youtube, but it's an audio documentary on James Booker, the Bayou Maharajah

Otherwise

R.I.P.

Twikale wa Twikale (petit Pierre) guitarist of Orchestre Les Mangelepa

Latest Muzikifan Podcast

The Temple of Music:
features music from Cuba, Egypt, India,
Guinea-Bissau, Congo, Kenya, Colombia
and Muddy Waters

Dr K. GYASI & HIS NOBLE KINGS
SIKYI HIGHLIFE (strut)

Kwame "Doctor K" Gyasi (1929-2012) was a Ghanaian highlife musician in the golden era of the 70s. He introduced electric organ to the line-up and released a series of successful albums on Dick Essilfie-Bondzie's Essiebons label. This reissue of what is arguably his masterpiece comes from 1974 and comprises two long medleys with relaxed guitars and ebbing and flowing organ gliding over a drumkit, cowbell and congas, with sharp accents from am intermittent brass section. Gyasi, born in Ashanti state, grew up playing palm wine guitar and polished his technique learning some of the popular calypsos of the 1940s. President Nkrumah picked him out to accompany him on trips to the Soviet Union and North Africa. His band the Noble Kings nurtured many fine talents including Eric Agyeman, Thomas Frimpong, Kwabena Akwaboah and Alhaji K. Frimpong. After the release of this album they toured Europe and the UK in 1975, releasing an album titled In Europe. Gyasi also toured with a theatrical troupe bringing Highlife operas to rural villages (there is a hint of this in the spoken opening and closing to side one). It would be amazing if there were any documentation of this. But political unrest in the late 70s led to curfews and an end to the "High life" many had enjoyed. The sound is familiar because I have albums by his former band members (notably guitarist Eric Agyeman who led the Sweet Talks with Thomas Frimpong), but this is the first time I have heard Gyasi. It's everything you'd expect from a great highlife album: dreamy and punchy by turns, and it floats on endlessly.

ANTOINE DOUGBE & L'ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU
1977-82 (Analog Africa AALP104)

That orchestre Poly-Rythmo are now a household name (at least in our households) is due to the efforts of one person: Samy ben Redjeb, founder of the Analog Africa label. Benin was a relatively sparse part of our record collections until we discovered Gnonnas Pedro in the early 80s. But Pedro and his Dadjes as well as orchestres Les Volcans and Poly-Rythmo were on the radar of Samy when he issued four albums in 2008-9: African Scream Contest, Legends of Benin, The Vodoun Effect and Echos: the latter two featuring orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. His enthusiasm led to the band being reformed after a 35-year hiatus, and touring Europe, and further reissues from their vast catalog, including the resurrection of the label Albarika Stores (by Acid Jazz records) which continues to reissue their albums. Analog has given us tastes of Dougbé before but now his three albums have been sampled to make an essential compilation. Dougbé was a Vódou adept but interestingly, neither a singer nor a musician. At least he never performed, but rather took his songs to Poly-Rythmo, who were the main studio band in Benin, and they recorded the music. So although he is posed looking like a rockstar on the cover, standing in front of a new car, holding a machete and an adze (Shango's symbol is the double-headed battle ax), he is only present in the recordings in the background, sitting in the studio, nodding along to the interpretation of his tunes. His religious practices led him to be dubbed "The Devil's prime minster" and this doubtless inspired awe in those musicians who encountered him, but his day job was as a bureaucrat in the office of Social Security Administration! Like others in Cotonou, as a young man he liked Cuban son and Congolese rumba. He particularly liked the Cavacha sound associated with Zaiko Langa Langa. Dougbé took his songs to his friend Melome Clément, band leader and arranger of Poly-Rythmo and sang them while slapping his legs. He called his sound Afro-Cavacha. While some musicians doubtless feared him, the Poly-Rythmo rhythm section, bassist Betho Gustave and drummer Yehouessi Leopold, were also Vódou adepts and so Dougbé respected them. This meant they were also familiar with the Ogbon rhythms played on a talking drum in ceremonies invoking Shango, the warlike Spirit of Thunder (who had crossed the Atlantic with the captives, finding a new home in the New World). The percussion is crucial (definite signs of restless leg syndrome in the drumming), the horns sometimes raggedy, and there is a synthi keyboard, familiar from the Gnonnas Pedro sessions. This is an intense high-energy set. There is a Cuban feel to the guitar in "We tayi sin assi tche," the opening cut. The Cavacha influence is most evident on "Vile de nan gni noude." (I tried google translate to figure out the lyrics: if it's Fon it means "Two villages in a knot"; if it's Fula it means "Village of dwarf knots" — I'll go with the latter.) "Towe nin" seems to be a praise song for Docteur Nico. There is a lot of variety in the arrangements, and the vocals (mainly by Bylleday Guissey) and chorus are in the groove, even if we have no idea what the songs are about.

CONJUNTO ANGOLA 70
TURMA DA BENCAO (Kop Records)

Turma da Bênção is a mainly instrumental semba/jazz album from Conjunto Angola 70, featuring Paolo Flores. Their name suggests they were formed 50 years ago, and that would put them in their 70s now, so naturally enough it is quite laid back with lilting guitars aplenty. But don't let that deceive you, there's still fire in the engine room. Yet is overall easy listening, or if you prefer mellow jazz. This may be a result of the mix which keeps the popping bass and the percussion below the vocals and guitars. Even the samba whistles seem restrained! I used to be surprised by the number of African musicians I met who, when I asked who their influences were, would cite Wes Montgomery. That sound is evident here. "Boas festas" recalls "This Masquerade" by George Benson and, unfortunately, the bridge to "Hotel California" (which I try to avoid hearing to at all costs)! But you get the feeling of a relaxed session (recorded in Luanda and Lisbon between 2018 and 2019). They've added a couple of younger members, Jéssica Pina on trumpet and Armando GoBliss on keyboards, but they are very much in the background (she shows up on "Rufo da Liberade," an uptempo number that is a cover of a Conjunto Merengue hit from 1975; he appears on the last track). The congas keep it from going on the nod and there are a few lively numbers, such as "Morgandinho" by their conguero Joãozinho Morgado, who also adds animação (animation) along the lines of "Chega menina! (That's enough girl!)" Angola, which was once part of the Kingdom of Kongo was one of the powerhouses of African music in the 40s and 50s, producing many great artists, from Manuel d'Oliveira of Trio BOW, the great San Salvador to Teta Lando and Sam Mangwana. The civil war not only decimated their population but destroyed a lot of the music industry. Though I am not a fan of feature-length cartoons (Totoro and Despicable Me excepted), there is a wonderful animated version of Ryszard Kapuscinski's Another Day of Life, about that civil war, which you can find on Kanopy. But back to the album, these old-timers have resplendent chops and cut loose on numbers like "Agarrem," a hit for Africa Ritmo in 1975, and found on the Angola Soundtrack 2 from Analog Africa.

LA FANTÁSTICA
FROM EAR TO EAR (Vampisoul VAMPI 355)

Joe Bataan is a Filipino-AfricanAmerican known as the "King of Latin soul," for his blend of two popular strains of American music. He grew up in Spanish Harlem, a safe place to be in the 50s if you were of mixed race. He liked doo-wop and boogaloo and his first record was a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Gypsy Woman." Unhappy with the financial deal he was given by Fania, he started his own label Ghetto Records, with backing from a local gangster. He coined the term "Salsoul" to describe his soulful salsa sound and issued seven albums on his label in the 1970s, before it crashed. Vampisoul has picked up the pieces to find these forgotten classics and reissued Orquesta La Fantástica's From Ear to Ear, with moody blues numbers as well as slamming salsa tunes. Bataan's business partner, the gangster George Febo, heard Orquesta La Fantástica one night at the Village Gate and was blown away by their sound. Instead of the piano, timbales, and two trombone line-up they had two tenor saxes, two trumpets and a piano as well as vibes. The album is all originals; the opener "Borinquen" suggests that the composers at least were Puerto Ricans. Saxophonist Sammy Léon was the main composer and the vocals were handled by Ralphy de Jesús, a.k.a. Chuleta (fried pork chop)! Highlights include "M&M" which is not about the candy but a jamming guaguancó about someone called "Maisonave" who discovered the band. "Telegrama" is a fast number almost in the merengue style of Dominican Republic: it pounds along with horns in counterpoint, cowbell against timbales and fierce congas in the mix.

JOE ACOSTA
THE POWER OF LOVE (Vampisoul VAMPI 354)

This is another overlooked gem from Joe Bataan's short-lived Ghetto Records which spun in clubs and bodegas back in the early 70s. Born in Puerto Rico, Joe Acosta was a pianist and bandleader fronted by Joe Cruz, a salsero and deep soul singer. This other Joe also sang in English which pushed songs like "I Need Her" into the Billboard charts. The Latin soul sound was better known on the West Coast as the Low Riders' soundtrack, but in New York Joe Acosta and his men threw down a mean guaguancó and son montuno. The hard salsa of "Bendita Ilusión," driven by timbales and brash trombone licks, is still a dance-floor favorite. Looking on bandcamp I find this came out from Ghetto Records in December 2023, so if you are in the USA it might be easier to cop the vinyl from there. The line-up includes piano (Joe Acosta himself) and uncredited tres and features Joe Cruz on vocals. A little digging turns up the other personnel which includes three trombones! As Frederic Chopin might have said, "If one trombone is good, three have to be killer, amirite?" Joe's brother Hector plays bass, plus the group includes the tripartite attack of bongos, conga and timbales: a truly deluxe lineup for a salsa band whose album gives a hint of how sharp they must have been in concert. The second slow number is a cover of Glen Campbell's "By the time I get to Phoenix" which seems dated; the album ends with another ballad "La Realidad," with this accomplished outfit showing how fine they were. The key to the groove on the restrained numbers is "Suave y tranquillo," as he says on "Juliana."

Most recent reviews

(click on maps at the top of the page to get to continent of choice)

April 2026

Saly Kouyaté's Mali Kelen is filed in Mali part 6
Zanja All stars are filed in Cuba 4
Léve Léve volume two from São Tomé can be found in the Cabo Verde tab
Les Belgicains are right there in Congo Classics 2
Read about Himba Hymn from Namibia in African miscellany
Steve Hernández and his Latinoamericana orchestra are filed in salsa
Ayjay Walzaqat al Jilalia is in Morocco

March 2026

Azuka Moweta and his Anioma Brothers' Kenechukwu is found in Nigeria part 3
Tim Maia's eponymous fourth album is reviewed in Brasil part 3
Roberto y su Nuevo Montuno can be read about in Puerto Rico
Music for a Revolution vol 2 is filed in Music of Guinee
Indian Talking Machine part 2 is filed in India & Pakistan part 2
Joseph Kamaru's Heavy Combination went to Kenya part 3

February 2026

Los Rogers are filed in Peru two

January 2026

Excavated Shellac: Voices is filed under world miscellany
Lenine's Eita can be found in Brasil part 3

December 2025

Dr Nico presents African Fiesta Sukisa &
Roger Izeidi presents African Fiesta Vita Matata are both filed in Congo Classics part 2
Noura Mint Seymali is filed in Arabia part 3
Syran Mbenza's Rumba Africa is filed under Music of Congo 4
Pelengana Blo's Hunter Folk vol II is found in Mali part 6
Son Palenque's latest is filed in Colombia part 3
Africa Shangazi is filed in Kenya & Tanzania part 3

November 2025

Bizimungu Dieudonne from Rwanda, is filed under African miscellany
Philip Tabane and Malombo's Sangoma is filed in South Africa part 2
Los Wemblers can be found in Peru part 2
The Last Poets' Africanism is filed in USA part 2

...

PAST TOP TENS BY YEAR

MY BEST-SELLING BOOK!

BACK IN PRINT (Second edition, November 2012)

A DISCOGRAPHY OF DOCTEUR NICO
By Alastair Johnston

all of the writing on this site is copyright © 2004-2026 by alastair m. johnston

Your comments are welcome. Or join the discussion on facebook

If you are not already a subscriber, send me an e-mail to be notified of updates, or fill in the box above. Please note none of the music discussed on the site is for sale by me. Also we will not use or share your mailing address for purposes other than the monthly notification of updates. You can reach me at contact[at-sign]muzikifan[dot]com

muzikifan by alastair m. johnston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.muzikifan.com.