IMN : Updates for Acoustic Africa

Acoustic Africa Plays Byham Theatre in Pittsburgh

IMN

November 21st, 2012

from New Pittsburgh Courier

Acoustic Africa: Afropean Woman features several genres of music
By Genea Webb

African women have power. That’s what the three women featured in the “Acoustic Africa: Afropean Woman” tour that graced the Byham Theater stage for one night only on Nov. 8 illustrated.

“We have power and we can change things in Africa with our voices. We always show Africa with problems like war and other bad things and we want to show the good things of Africa. We don’t always see African women playing guitar and percussion,” said Kareyce Fotso, a Cameroonian singer whose music is a combination of Afro-pop, Blues and African rhythms.

Presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, “Acoustic Africa: Afropean Woman” took the Pittsburgh audience on a journey into the richness of African vocal traditions with performances by up-and-coming female African impresarios.

The Afropean Woman is the third worldwide tour in the Acoustic Africa series. The initial tour was such a success that the creators saw other installments of the tour as a no-brainer.

“We (brought) four exceptional girls from four different types of music and mixing them together,” said Ronald Van Cutsem.

In addition to Fotso, other women on the tour included Ivory Coast vocalist and dancer Dobet Gnahore, and bassist and vocalist Manou Gallo.

The trio was accompanied by composer and singer Leni Stern who gained worldwide acclaim for her four recordings of African-tinged arias; and Ivorian balafonist Aly Keita and Tchango Kassoung on drums.

“All the music we play in America comes from Africa,” said Stern who moved from her homeland of Germany to the United States in the late 1970s. “When you play with African artists, you can hear the passion in the music! People who come to see the show need to be ready to get up and dance! If you’ve had a bad day, forget about it.”

Read the full article here

REVIEW: Acoustic Africa Marvels at Lafayette College

IMN

November 12th, 2012

from Lehigh Valley Music

Acoustic Africa Marvels at Lafayette College
By Milton Carrero

The show started with a harmonious whisper coming from behind the stage. It startled a child, sitting in the audience.

“What’s that?” the boy asked his dad before the three vocalists of Acoustic Africa emerged, their radiant voices illuminating the silence like candles in the night.

Dobet Gnahore, Kareyce Fotso and Manou Gallo did not take long to win over the audience with their cadence, their stage presence and an additional effervescence, which combined with their skill as dancers and instrumentalists made them irresistible to the heart and ear.

Ghahore dazzled with her exuberance. She sang with sincerity, played percussion with passion and danced with complete abandonment. Her fellow Ivorian, Gallo, proved that she can revolutionize any song by rapping or by unleashing the funk on the green neon strings that bounce on her bass guitar. Fotso was incredibly tender at times with her nylon string guitar. They can all dance hard without losing their permanent smiles.

This third rendition of Acoustic Africa focuses on the African women, specifically West Africa. The male musicians are also from the region. Aly Keita on balafon — a distant cousin of the marimba — and Zoumana Diarra proved that the art of improvisation is alive and well in Mali. Wendlavim Zabsonre of Burkina Faso on drums kept the excitement going, combining West African rhythms with Jazz undercurrents.

American Leni Stern interracted with the band much in the way that Paul Simon approached his iconic project South African project, Graceland. She told her own tale in the context of the African song. She sung in English and in one of the many languages used in Mali, but she expressed herself better when she exchanged solos with Diarra on guitar.

The charisma that these performers exuded was so contagious that the audience couldn’t help but to dance, and what started with a whisper ended with a celebration on both sides of the stage.

Read the full article here

‘Afropean Women’ a Melange of Sounds and Styles

IMN

October 26th, 2012

from The Boston Globe

‘Afropean Women’ a melange of sounds and styles
By Siddhartha Mitter

One is a glamorous, worldly vocalist who’s as brilliant a dancer and drummer as she is a singer. Another is a songwriter on the rise who’s concerned with the environment and social uplift. The third is the former bass player for a world-renowned funk band.

All three — Dobet Gnahoré, Kareyce Fotso, and Manou Gallo — are African women: Gnahoré and Gallo from the Ivory Coast, and Fotso from Cameroon. Though less known on this side of the Atlantic, they’ve each forged strong solo careers and a fan base, particularly in Europe. But this year the three have joined forces in a kind of supergroup, for maximum exposure and impact, and as a chance to experiment.

They bring the project, titled Afropean Women, to the Somerville Theatre this Sunday.

Musically, it’s a hybrid of hybrids, as none of the three is a narrow traditionalist. Gnahoré’s sound is as cosmopolitan as her home city, the Ivorian metropolis Abidjan, a business and arts crossroads of West Africa, while grounded in the folk experimentalism of the Village Ki-Yi, a local arts collective in which her father was a percussionist.

Fotso, who left behind biochemistry studies so she could blossom from backup singer to solo artist, is one of the new wave of singer-songwriters, like Nigeria’s Nneka and Asa, in whom the classic lyricism of a Joni Mitchell and the neo-soul mystique of an Erykah Badu fuse into the rich West African repertoire of rhythms and themes.

And Gallo, who at 40 calls herself the “vieille mère” (old mother) of the three, is a lifelong stage pro who was a youth player in 1980s Ivorian pop band Woya, then spent time in Village Ki-Yi, before moving to Europe and a six-year stint as the bass player in global funk act Zap Mama, which unleashed her rock and jazz sensibilities.

Their influences are disparate, says Fotso, but they had no trouble finding common ground for their collaboration.

“Ultimately all three of us come from Africa,” Fotso says. “We have plenty of cultural differences but there’s always a terrain where we meet. It’s in the rhythms, the intonations. You could really feel the motivation from each one of us as we started to work together.”

The collaboration — prompted by Belgian label Contre Jour as part of its Acoustic Africa series — is a recent one. It began with a work session in Brussels last January, and continued with rehearsals in Lomé, Togo, and a first series of concerts in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Balafon master Aly Keita and New York-based guitarist Leni Stern, a veteran of numerous African collaborations, joined in and are part of the tour.

Each player contributed several songs, submitting them to a workshop process in which they took new shapes, as each musician added her ideas and her touch.

“They are all existing songs,” says Gnahoré. “We worked on them together, adapted them, and that way, we added some magic.”

The original instrumentation, the role-switching as each woman takes a turn on percussion, and the shared vocal lead duties make this a group unlike any other. They have yet to record, but video from their African concerts shows the women in a fluid, groovy exchange, their enthusiasm evident.

“We all appreciate each other,” Gnahoré says. “The show is dynamic and busy.”

The opportunity to create as a team of women was a significant motivation to get involved, says Gallo, a trailblazer in her own right as one of very few African women bassists on the scene.

“I don’t think of myself as a feminist, but I have a little feminist side,” Gallo says. “I enjoy being able to show how African women take charge of themselves.”

Read the full article here

Acoustic Africa: Ivory Coast Passion Lives

IMN

October 25th, 2012

From The London Free Press

Ivory Coast Passion Lives
By James Reaney

Anyone who has seen charismatic Ivory Coast star Dobet Gnahore when she’s played TD Sunfest outdoors at Victoria Park will be thrilled to know she is back in town.

A spectacular dancer and a gifted and passionate songwriter and singer, the Grammy-winning Gnahore is in good company on Friday at 8 p.m. at the London Convention Centre when she returns under the Sunfest banner.

Joining her are a fellow Ivorian, Zap Mama bassist and vocalist Manou Gallo, and Cameroon’s Kareyce Fotso, a blues and Afropop singer. Backing the three “Afropean” women is a band led by guitarist Leni Stern of the U.S. with Ivory Coast balafonist Aly Keita in the lineup.

Read the full article here

Kareyce Fotso Joins Acoustic Africa in Montreal

IMN

October 24th, 2012

From The Montreal Gazette

The voice of Africa sings to the world
By: Bernard Perusse

MONTREAL – Kareyce Fotso said she will never hesitate to sing out against practices like arranged marriages or breast ironing in her native Cameroon. In fact, it’s pretty much a singer-songwriter’s duty to rebel when he or she disagrees with society’s dictates, Fotso said during a recent telephone interview.

“We have a chance to be heard,” she said. “And there are plenty of people listening. We have to use that possibility to raise awareness. With our pen and our microphone, we can change things. And it has an impact. We hear from people about the songs that touched their lives.”

Fotso will bring some of her songs to Montreal on Saturday, as part of the third Acoustic Africa tour. This one, unlike its predecessors, is headlined entirely by women: Fotso will sing and play guitar on stage with singer Dobet Gnahoré and bassist Manou Gallo, both from the Ivory Coast. And the sharing of the bill in this concert, also known as Afropean Women, is quite literal, Fotso said: the three artists will remain on stage together and even do each other’s songs, rearranged for the unplugged setting, when the spirit moves them.

“I’m interested in all life has to offer,” Fotso said of the topics that attract her as a writer. “I can’t write songs made to order. I never say, ‘OK, today I’ll write about such and such.’ I write when I live through something that touches me.”

To read more click here

VIDEO: Acoustic Africa 2012 - Bamako

IMN

June 4th, 2012

Acoustic Africa recently had a performance in Mali to warm up for there upcoming tour this October. Enjoy this video of their performance. For their french speaking audience there are also interviews with Manou Gallo and Leni Stern.

REVIEW: Acoustic Africa in Washington

IMN

April 25th, 2011

from Africa Answerman

Acoustic Africa

By Conor Godfrey
April 14, 2011

Last week I rounded up a few friends and saw a tremendous concert put on by Acoustic Africa at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.

The show featured three African music powerhouses—Habib Koite, from Mali, whom I have written about before, Afel Bocoum also from Mali, and Oliver Mtukudzi (goes by “Tuku”), from Zimbabwe.

These guys—especially Koite and Tuku—are household names in their regions, and in some parts of Europe, but they often have to play dive bars or cultural centers for 10 bucks a ticket when they hit the U.S. (Language being the major issue for the Malians)

Last time I saw Habib Koite was in Philadelphia at a local arts council for $10. This most recent concert was a step up—they sold out a 400-500 person auditorium at $40-$50 a ticket.

And they were worth every bit of it. I swear there is something about Malian music that makes you remember what is important in life.

Read the entire article here

African Guitarists Rile Up Laxson

IMN

March 29th, 2011

From the Orion

African Guitarists Rile Up Laxson
By Leila Rodriguez

Many seats were left vacant Thursday night for the Acoustic Africa concert at Laxson Auditorium.

Instead, audience members found themselves in the aisles swaying to the thriving percussions and rhythmic guitar of Habib Koite and Afel Bocoum, both from Mali, and Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe. The famous African guitar players ventured from their homelands for the second installation of the Acoustic Africa tour.

Their smiles and guitars enchanted Chico in a foreign tongue with a message of happiness, hope and taking naps. Their illuminating presence on stage carried into their playful nature. Watching the relationship between the three performers and the band was charming.

Separately, the three performers have established notable musical careers reflected throughout the world, though on this tour they collaborated, blending styles and culture. Mtukudzi’s husky yet smooth voice carried over his guitar in a booming manner.

Song styles varied with each musician. Some gradually progressed into a tune slowly adding instrument by instrument until all were loudly present. Some even sounded like an endless jam session until Mtukudzi, Koite or Bocoum’s voice belted out the lyrics. It was easy to get lost in a song.

“It’s good when we play,” Koité said. “We feel very close.”

Read the entire review here

Acoustic Africa to Bring African Guitar Traditions to UCLA Live’s Royce Hall March 26

IMN

March 18th, 2011

From World Music Central

Acoustic Africa to Bring African Guitar Traditions to UCLA Live’s Royce Hall March 26

The concert series UCLA Live will present Acoustic Africa at Royce Hall Saturday March 26 at 8 p.m. The concert includes Habib Koité, Oliver Mtukudzi and Afel Bocoum in a musical journey that focuses on the richness of the African guitar tradition.

Performing solo, duo and trio, and backed by an ensemble of traditional stringed and percussion instrumentalists – the concert weaves a collection of traditional songs among contemporary popular ones from each of the leaders.

Headlining Acoustic Africa are the continent’s most indomitable touring artists, songwriters and social commentators; Habib Koité, the Malian superstar whose exciting concerts have endeared him to audiences worldwide, Oliver Mtukudzi, the best-selling artist in his home country of Zimbabwe, and Afel Bocoum, a guitarist, singer, and composer from Mali whose songs evoke the evolution of traditional Malian society.

Acoustic Africa is presented under the artistic guidance of International Music Network and its Belgian partners Contre Jour. The project began in 2006 with a Putumayo compilation album, and went on to come an internationally celebrated companion tour of the same name that brought together singers Vusi Mahlasela, Habib Koité and Dobet Gnahoré.

This year’s second rendition is a celebration of modern Africa, at times subtle and solemn, then ebullient with celebratory rhythms– compelling audiences to move to the stage and share in the dance.

Read the entire article here

REVIEW Acoustic Africa: Immense Talent, Great Music

IMN

March 14th, 2011

From the Madison Times

Acoustic Africa: Immense Talent, Great Music
By Elana Siegel

The music floats out of the speakers. It filters through the room and settles lightly, as a repeating guitar lick mixes with undulating percussion. I find myself punctuating the beat with my body. The rhythm is impossible to ignore, although the percussion is subtle and understated. Restrained voices mingle and join together for cadenced choruses. The melodies are natural, the harmonies complete. This music just feels right.

That natural feel comes from Acoustic Africa, a conglomerate group that combines the artistry of three of Africa’s greatest songwriters, Habib Koite, Oliver Mtukduzi and Afel Bocoum. This musical ensemble manages to beautifully integrate the acoustic mastery of these three artists. The group will perform at the Wisconsin Union Theater on Thursday, March 10 at 8pm. The performance will feature solo performances from each of the three artists as well as combined numbers.

Malian superstar Habib Koite is known as a modern griot, the African bards who sing stories, play praise songs and keep the history of their people. He is a wanderer; in the past ten years, Koite and his band Bamada have performed over 600 times for audiences from Japan to Kazakhstan to Brazil. His musical talent is immense. Within six months of enrolling at an arts institute in Mali, Koite was made conductor of the school’s most prestigious band. When he graduated four years later, he was immediately hired as the school’s guitar teacher.

Read the entire review here

Acoustic Africa Live in Oakland, California

IMN

March 11th, 2011

From: Jazzreview.com

By: Harry S. Pariser

How often do four talented African guitarists come together to play acoustic onstage? Putumayo Records, a unique company, not only brought together such a remarkable supergroup but put them on tour.

“Acoustic Africa’s” three main guitarists were Afel Becoum and Habib Koité from Mali and Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe. They were backed by the estimable Mamadou Kelly, Becoum’s highly-talented regular guitarist and other musicians.

Becoum is known for his work with Ali Farka Koure, Habib is a prominent singer songwriter who is known for tuning his guitar on a pentatonic scale and playing on open strings as one would on a kamale n’goni, a traditional instrument. At other times, his music sounds more like the blues or flamenco — two styles he studies under mentor Khalilou Traore. Mtukudzi, a Zimbabwe native who still lives under the repressive Mugabe regime, is known for his own musical style, dubbed “Tuku Music” by his fans.

Rounding out the group were Yoro Cisse (another Becoum veteran) playing njurkel, a one-stringed lute, and jdjurkle (monochord), Sam Matauare on percussion and Phillip Tzikirai on mbira.

The ensemble’s sound combined a hearty mix of West African and Zimbabwean rhythyms, quite a bit of cleverly staged, extremely colorful costuming, and some back and forth concerning the two cultures. The sight of the three guitarists, rocking back and forth on the stage, was as much a marvel to see as the interplay was to hear.

Acoustic Africa II: Mali meets Zimbabwe

IMN

March 9th, 2011

From Afropop Worldwide

Acoustic Africa II: Mali meets Zimbabwe
Banning Eyre

The second edition of Acoustic Africa is now rolling across North America. The series presents three African artists on the same stage, each with just a few support musicians, and collaborating interactively on each others’ repertoires. This edition features Habib Koite and Afel Bocoum of Mali, and Oliver Mtukudzi of Zimbabwe. I caught up with them at the Somerville Theater in Boston on February 27, and found a beautiful and fascinating exchange going on between great artists from two of my favorite musical countries. Interviews and music from this tour will be featured on an upcoming edition of Afropop Worldwide, “21st Century Troubadours.”

Afel is a champion of northern Mali’s Sonrai and other regional traditions. He was long part of Ali Farka Toure’s ensemble, and has led his own exquisite group for many years now. All three of these artists make expert use of their counties’ indigenous music styles, but Afel is the most authentically “traditional” musician among them. He appears here with Mamadou Kelly on guitar and vocals and Yoro Cisse on the one-string lute (monochord or njurkel) and one-string violin (njarka). Afel has never brought his full ensemble to the US, so this is a first chance for Americans to experience the particularly deep spell this music can cast when played live by musicians of this caliber.

Read the entire review here