African Music Reissues 2002-2012

Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
i got really weary of the new wave of african music reissues in about 2001 - barring struts Nigeria 70 the first batch were really shit - terrible "the shrine" comp by ocho - really poor "oulelele" and "racubah" comps.

so i guess i thought it was all over and done with. that things couldn't be improved. that we were in to scraping the barrel now. and there were lots of great things going on in contemporary music - like grime frinstance.

how wrong can one be!

actually everything got better. much much better.

first to the table was the soundway label. amazing stuff. check the afro baby comp. unbelievably good.

then also lots of more good stuff on strutt. nigeria.

honest jons - yes - two very very good comps. (fricking amazing) "lagos all routes" and "lagos chop-up"

analog africa. another really great label.

golden afrique. great series.
 
J

Jim Daze

Well-known member
yo matt

did you get any of those kindred Spirits re-issues that one super djata de bamako - vol. 2 is a belter , in fact they all are!
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
if you two werent fathers i would invite you to come and pay homage to oliver craner on monday when he visits london. i might take him to a pub for a special treat.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
we're barely scratching the surface.

the 2 recent Angolan Soundtracks volumes on AA were aaammmaaazzziiinnnggg
 
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T

Trillhouse

Well-known member
I don't know why you'd think African focussed funk comps would only get worse in 2001, back then the continent was still an untapped treasure trove of music. Beyond Fela and the pretty awful World Music Scene a lot of the continents music has been largely ignored. Since 2000 or so, there's been a constant stream of great music being shipped off the continent, similar to the British Northern scene djs pillaging of US soul vinyl.

African music from the 60s to 80s has been the new grippers goldrush, with various collectors voraciously hoovering up much of the vinyl left in their respective parts of the continent. It's a scene full of bitchy infighting, with claims of copyright infringement, bootlegging and musical colonialism.
 
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trza

trza

Well-known member
No love for Awesome Tapes or the Zamrock getting re-released by Now Again?
 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
luka said:
if you two werent fathers i would invite you to come and pay homage to oliver craner on monday when he visits london. i might take him to a pub for a special treat.
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i'd be around - but equally could handle the rejection ;)
 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
Trillhouse said:
I don't know why you'd think African focussed funk comps would only get worse in 2001, back then the continent was still an untapped treasure trove of music. Beyond Fela and the pretty awful World Music Scene a lot of the continents music has been largely ignored. Since 2000 or so, there's been a constant stream of great music being shipped off the continent, similar to the British Northern scene djs pillaging of US soul vinyl.

African music from the 60s to 80s has been the new grippers goldrush, with various collectors voraciously hoovering up much of the vinyl left in their respective parts of the continent. It's a scene full of bitchy infighting, with claims of copyright infringement, bootlegging and musical colonialism.
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well, as i think i admit, obviously i was wrong to have given up on it. this is the way it goes with music though isn't it? one's attention wanders. i committed precisely the same error with the reissues of roots reggae from the same period.

when i visited senegal and gambia in 1993 i found some vinyl then. the point about records in those days was that the shops were basically tape stores. they would make money by selling recordings of the vinyl. therefore if you bought a record off them then it meant that you were permanently removing a recording from local circulation. i remember one etoile de dakar LP that i settled for a cassette copy of because to take the LP seemed off.

i'm not sure i share your sentiment about the "awful world music scene". firstly a lot of the new reissues are geared obsessively to funky tracks for the dancefloor - this is a bit embarrassing really - and labels like soundway now seem to be in process of self-correction - the nigeria special and ghana special comps. secondly the original world music labels - sterns, earthworks etc seemed much more oriented to new music and i'd argue that they were more in tune to the existing musical reality of these countries rather than extracting and reshaping the past. having said this - at the end of the day i'm not even sure with the passing of time the two separate scenes won't appear more similar than they do now.

i do agree about your comments regarding the digging scene. at its worst it does seem like a cheap holiday in someone else's misery. there is one retro african music blogger in particular who comes across like an exploitative playboy - lord knows how he funds his lifestyle. however i know the two leading lights of the scene - miles cleret and duncan brooker take great pride in their licensing and payment arrangements. i think samy ben redjep seems also take great care. from this pov your comments seem unfair.
 
trza

trza

Well-known member
I always wondered what the Analog Africa guy did to clear the songs, or what Soundway do. I mean what do they really do? The liner notes from the AA compilations make it seem like he goes and finds a person from an old African rock band and gets them to sign a release form, I would guess Soundway do something similar. The royalties from the sales are probably just pennies, but the recognition is something that wouldn't be there without the reissues.

These compilations owe a little bit to the introductory compilations that got people a little interested in this music over a decade ago. We couldn't have double cd comps of music from Burkina Faso today if it weren't for releases like The Rough Guide to West African Music back in the nineties.
 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
trza said:
I always wondered what the Analog Africa guy did to clear the songs, or what Soundway do. I mean what do they really do? The liner notes from the AA compilations make it seem like he goes and finds a person from an old African rock band and gets them to sign a release form, I would guess Soundway do something similar. The royalties from the sales are probably just pennies, but the recognition is something that wouldn't be there without the reissues.

These compilations owe a little bit to the introductory compilations that got people a little interested in this music over a decade ago. We couldn't have double cd comps of music from Burkina Faso today if it weren't for releases like The Rough Guide to West African Music back in the nineties.
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from what i've read they sign a contract - pay an advance (probably the significant payment that is got) and yes probably a few royalties down the line - but i suspect it's all about the advance.

i don't imagine they pay a huge sum but they probably can't afford to - and these old guys probably rightly think - this guy seems pretty straightforward - and, well i'm lucky someone wants this old stuff at all - and yes it's not the fortune i would like but it's better than a kick in the teeth and it's nice people appreciate what i was doing.

i wouldn't think people like miles cleret make very much money though? i expect each release costs a small fortune to put together. he probably gets a good fee for dj-ing, gets a bit from the sales at the beginning and as the catalogue builds up the long tail is ok.

but maybe someone wants to disabuse me of my naiviety?
 
T

Trillhouse

Well-known member
Woebot said:
i'm not sure i share your sentiment about the "awful world music scene". firstly a lot of the new reissues are geared obsessively to funky tracks for the dancefloor - this is a bit embarrassing really - and labels like soundway now seem to be in process of self-correction - the nigeria special and ghana special comps. secondly the original world music labels - sterns, earthworks etc seemed much more oriented to new music and i'd argue that they were more in tune to the existing musical reality of these countries rather than extracting and reshaping the past. having said this - at the end of the day i'm not even sure with the passing of time the two separate scenes won't appear more similar than they do now.

i do agree about your comments regarding the digging scene. at its worst it does seem like a cheap holiday in someone else's misery. there is one retro african music blogger in particular who comes across like an exploitative playboy - lord knows how he funds his lifestyle. however i know the two leading lights of the scene - miles cleret and duncan brooker take great pride in their licensing and payment arrangements. i think samy ben redjep seems also take great care. from this pov your comments seem unfair.
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Obviously I was talking rather broadly and being admittedly a little negative. But my experience with things like the Womad music festival and the kind of repackaging of African music for the mainly white middle class hippie types has few positives. I'm sure there are good people doing great things but in general the scene has had a bad image.
Same could be said about my comments about the current scene. For every great reissue there will be plenty of bootlegs and shady operators. There have been some fairly public spats between various parties, but I've no interesting in dragging any of that ish up and I doubt it's all that different from any other music scene, especially one in the reissue market.
 
D

dert

Well-known member
Trillhouse said:
There have been some fairly public spats between various parties, but I've no interesting in dragging any of that ish up and I doubt it's all that different from any other music scene, especially one in the reissue market.
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actually this is something i'm guessing few of us know much about?
 
trza

trza

Well-known member
The Infamous map of africa with record collector reissue/rerelease label names written on top? Some guy on SoulStrut accusing BBE records of being "british bootlegging enterprises?

The guys at Mississippi Records reissuing an old Mali record without even bothering to find out the band was still alive? They were even accused of taking a promotional sample tape, something a guy shared physical copies with some label heads before tracking down the artists to make a compilation, but Mississippi just bootlegged the songs on his tape and took the entire market for his compilation away?
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
yes this conversation is somewhat old hat in the "global music" scenes but as eye-rolling as it is to some, in many ways it is for sure good to continue (not necessarily suggesting here)

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