Yatta- WAHALA

EmpressJess

Well-known member
I love this album so much!

One thing I really love about it is the way that it brings African griot spoken word traditions into the 21st century and captures different parts of African music's journey through the evolution of African American music.

There are tracks that sound like contemporary updates of traditional African vocal choirs, of African drumming and of Kora music. It seems to me that Yatta's hearing genres like techno and footwork through the lens of her African heritage.

It's so clever the way that she's reimagined griot storytelling as modern day gossiping because it makes these traditions seem so relatable and normal.

Then there are all these references to African American traditions such as the song titles 'Blues' and 'Cowboy' and her New Orleans voodoo look on the album cover.

I love, love, love this album!

What do you guys think?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
The kora really stood out to me. It's one of my favourite instruments. I love stuff like Toumani Diabate etc. So it's nice to hear it used and not in a shitty superficial way, a bit of African colour but something a bit deeper, more resonate.

There's something about this album that I found hard to grasp. I listened to it three times yesterday and each time it felt like it slipped out of consciousness - I think that's 'cos it has quite a broken episodic structure anyway, isn't defined by hooks and also I was doing other stuff mostly so failed to pay attention to the voices and the very loose fragments of memory they're evoking. Not being able to recall it seems appropriate somehow. It's kinda more like a sequence of flashbacks than a record.

I'd put this in a (very) loose canon of "jazz"/contemporary experimental music by black artists that's playing with ideas of blackness and heritage - this would include Damon Lock, Matana Roberts, and I guess Angele Bat Dawid whose "The Oracle" was one of my favourite records last year. I'd chuck Jamie Branch in here were she actually black.
 
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EmpressJess

Well-known member
Not being able to recall it seems appropriate somehow. It's kinda more like a sequence of flashbacks than a record.

in much the same way that African American music often only briefly recalls its African roots. This album plays with the idea of cultural memory when that culture has been forcibly stolen from you.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Interview here:

https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tra...an-interview-with-yatta-stream-release-wahala

It felt like the composition of the album reflected the themes of tension and splitting that you’ve previously spoken about. Was that intentional and were you thinking about those themes?

Only in so much in that it let me put the truth in there and not clean it up because its actually hard for me to listen to. It’s not very comfortable. Part of me wishes I could make music that’s easier to listen to but my brain just doesn’t really work that way.

What would music that’s easier to listen to sound like?

Repeatable and neuro-typical. Not as disturbing [laughs].

"Splitting" is Kleinian terminology. Taken with the comments about voices, you could read PTSD into it.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I gave this a listen on a walk earlier.

One of the first tunes reminded me of something Laurie Anderson but it stopped before I had a chance to get hypnotized.

Very manic and fragmented. I might have listened in the wrong setting.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
No, fragmented is about right. One of the reasons it's interesting - to me at least. Could see why it might piss someone right off.

The only track that allows the hypnotic to develop is the final one. Maybe that's a flaw.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Have also wondered if Entertainment is also Barty so Idiscussing hallucinated voices is appropriate.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Everybody thought Barty was me. I'm going to start a sock puppet account called princess bess
 
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