Afro

ts early 2015. Welcome to Africa Seven. We are a new record label. We may be based in Paris and London but our hearts firmly rooted in the universal motherland. We love African music, we want everyone to hear it and we want to spread the love. We are a collective of crate diggers, afro music-heads, label spotters and vinyl buying obsessives. We don't have any particular musical release agenda apart from, "is it of African origin, does it have a beat?, do we like it?". For the first few releases on Africa Seven we are exploring a rich seam of creativity and groove from the 70's. Stand by for re-issues from Manu Dibango, Jake Sollo, Jo Tongo, Pasteur Lappe and Tala AM to name but a few.Trying to decide our first release was a long drawn out affair. Everyone had their favorites...,. Would it Manu, Tala, Ray, Jake or Jo? In the end we just couldn't decide. To keep the peace we settled on a taster compilation called "African Airways Vol 01". Think of it as a statement of intent. A sample of aural treats in store. As for the cheesy name, well...,.. we like African Music, who doesn't like air hostesses? and we are aeroplane geeks. It was a no-brainer really.Volume 1 of Africa Airways focuses on the funkier side of 70s African music. We can't think of any better way to start an African compilation than some pounding, powerful, masterful African drumming. Thank you Ekambi Brilliant, you sure know how to set up an opening track. Next up we jump to the Cameronian king of the Tchamassi dance, Tala Andre Marie (Tala AM is his snazzier moniker). "Black Gold" is a track that really says it all. Cant-sit-still grooves, masterfully jangly guitars and a really cool nascent use of synthesizers. Is it possible to play a song over and over again 300 times? - we think so. Elvis Kemayo is next up with the funky assault. Big brass, big basslines and happy times. Cameroonian native Jo Tongo, now lives in New York but back in the 70s he was part of the Fiesta label massive who were cranking out great records in Paris. "Jangolo" is quite possibly his finest moment. Keeping things Cameroon to finish up side one is the Saxophone master Manu Dibango. "Mimbo" is jazzy, darty gem. Manu recently turned 80 and celebrated with a series of gigs. A true afro legend with over 30 albums to his name. Quite a few have never been re-issued since the 70s and they are now patiently queued up on our release schedule.Opening side two of our vinyl is Jo Bisso. Give It Up is a funky, brass however from 1977 on the Disques Esperance label. Next up is "Mbongui". Did you think a flute in African music could sound this funky? Nigerian Jake Sollo met with an untimely death but his music lives on. Jake was a leader of one of the first wave of funky afro bands to come out of Nigeria in the early 70s, "The Funkees". "Father Time and Mother Nature" retains all those key elements of what made his band so successful. Sookie are next up with their US style funk..., but with an African twist. To finish up the LP Paris based "African Soul Band" bring out the dark strings, chanted Senegalese vocals and mirroring marimbas for their epic closer "Nande" from 1978.Stay tuned for more Africa Seven releases on CD, Vinyl and Digital. Our next release is from the Cameroonian Saxophone master Manu Dibango with a rare 1977 Film Soundtrack "Ceddo". Think thoughtful, brooding afrobeat meets Shaft.

We are more than ten releases in here at Africa Seven. It has been a wild ride... It was eight months ago that we launched our label and released our debut release the Compilation "Africa Airways 01: Funk Connection". It did better than we ever imagined and we had to repress the darned thing twice... So predictably for a follow up we humbly present you with "Africa Airways 02: Funk Departures 1973-1982". We have unashamedly stuck to the formula of our debut, keeping the funk deep and the groove pan-African. Heading straight for the afrobeat, dance-funk jugular.We open up Volume Two with an absolute corker... "Na Real Sekele Fo Ya" from Cameroonian-in-Paris Pasteur Lappe. Produced by Jacob Desvarieux of Kassav fame, this track is an instant grabber, Think of the Blockheads "Rhythm Stick" goes Afro chant with deep, soulful moog grooves and on-point brass stabs. Next up is M'Bamina an Italian / Ivory Coast band who swing things heavy with "Kilowi Kilowi". Sweeting strings, funky bass lines wrapped around a late 70s style disco groove.Ekambi Briallant is next up with his floor tappingly catchy afro soul "Aboki (Mon Copain)", produced by one of our favorite producers Slim Pezin. To round off the A-side of the vinyl we present the first outing from the Makeba family. Here the (sadly prematurely departed) Bongi Makeba, daughter of "Mama Africa" Myriam Makeba, shows the world just what an amazing artist she would have developed into. Bongi wrote a fair number of her mother's tracks in her later years and "Don't Do It" shows us what true talent for the song she was blessed with. The track her powers along with wah-wah guitar and masterful alto sax. A real treat.Friend of Africa Seven and Cameroonian native Jo Tongo opens thing up on Side B. Jo now lives in New York but back in the 70s he was part of the Fiesta label collective who were cranking out great records in Paris. "Piani" is his purest dancefloor moment, here again in full glory.Next up we bend our African remit ever-so slightly and head off to Holland for a James Brown style fuelled funk stomper "Relax.. Before Doing Sex" from Oscar Harris and his crew. Its big, its bold, its brassy...,.. It's fun.The power trio of Bozambo are next up. Between them they have released over 12 solo LPs and here together with "Get it On The Music" they power through with a keyboard/synyh driven afro-funk groove years ahead of its time..., made in 1978 but sounding like 1984. Misse Ngoh is one great guitarist and a masterful adaptor of the Makossa rhythms of his native Cameroun. The title track from his Esperance 1979 LP "Tata Ngoh" mixes in his trademark rhythms and grooves with slap bass and striking brass lines. One heck of a catchy song too.We round off the compilation with the Queen of Queens, Myriam Makeba. Possibly / probably the most influential female musician to come out of Africa..., ever. "Mama Africa's" biography is awe-inspiring and vast, but very hard to summarize in a few sentences... so please check it out for yourself. From breaking the African sound in the West, to the obsessively catchy "Pata Pata" to the influential, focal role she played in helping bring an end to Apartheid in her native South Africa. There are many tracks to feature from Myriam but we aren't about hits here at Africa Seven. Being the crate diggers we are, we thought the best way we could honour the lady was to dig the crate even deeper and go with the most obscure Myriam track we could find. "Toyota Fantasy" was recorded during her exile years spent in Guinea with the Esperance team as a one off promotional 7" single giveaway release. Be aspirational, as the lady says.We hope you enjoy your flight with African Airways 02. We hope to be fuelling up an aircraft with some psychedelic propellant for volume 3 sometime in 2016... at a vinyl store near you.

When faced with the decision to take a different direction at the risk of getting lost in a synthetic sound or to further explore the same musical path, Vaudou Game did not need to consult the oracle for very long when putting together their new album. Since their first acclaimed album, Apiafo and its irresistible single "Pas Contente", these Lyon natives never turned down the heat on over 130 stages across Europe, Africa, America and Asia. Peter Solo has displayed his amulets, charisma and yellow pants around the globe. When time came for them to harness their Afro-Funk sound again, they turned their attention once again to their analog strengths. Vintage material, instruments and cassette tapes were the "grigris" (or lucky charms) which proved most effective to ward off digital corruption of their music and return them to a tight-knit group with a solid groove.

Strut presents a definitive collection of recordings from one of Tanzania’s most revered bands of the early 1970s, Sunburst. Covering their output from 1973 to 1976, this first retrospective features their singles for the Moto Moto and TFC labels, their sole album, ‘Ave Africa’ and an unreleased radio session recorded in Tanzania in 1973By the time Zairean guitarist Hembi Flory Kongo had formed the band in Dar Es Salaam in 1970 playing “copyright” cover versions, soul and funk had long influenced young musicians in Dar and ‘boogies’, weekly soul events, were commonplace at the city’s clubs. Despite the Tanzanian government banning soul (both music and dancing) through their conservative Ujamaa policy in 1969, Sunburst grew as a band and developed their own musical direction which they later called Kitoto Sound, reflecting the diverse backgrounds of the band members. Lyrical themes included black pride and colonial oppression – the band even played a gig for visiting civil rights heroine Angela Davis.After June 1973, Sunburst gained a national audience through a live session for the state-owned Radio Tanzania, a crucial means for domestic bands to air their work. A month later, they won a band competition in Dar Es Salaam and their popularity in Tanzania grew further. They began recording singles in Kenya, standing apart from the predominantly rumba, jazz or taarab styles sung in local languages at the time.In 1974, Sunburst met Zambian musician Rikki Ililonga from Zamrock group Musi- O-Tunya and he invited them to Zambia. Meeting their later manager, car company employee Peter Bagshawe, they embarked on an ill-fated tour with Kenyan funk band Matata before working on a first full album in 1976 in Lusaka with new band members. The LP came out at the height of the Zamrock scene led by bands like Witch and Ngozi Family but Sunburst offered a more intricate sound as musicians born in six different countries tapped into a multitude of styles, languages and stories. “Our songs support freedom struggles and encourage peasants and workers to work harder,” singer James Mpungo recounted. “Our songs also criticize our people for allowing themselves to be too westernized.” After a handful of further singles for Tanzanian state label TFC, including the popular ‘Banchikicha’, the band split, frustrated by living on “bare minimum earnings” from their music. The result of three years’ painstaking work after tracking down bandleader Hembi Kongo, bassist Bashir and the band’s ex-manager Peter Bagshawe, this overdue retrospective is curated by Thomas Gesthuizen (DJ Gioumanne) of Africanhiphop. com and Dave Tinning of Santuri East Africa. The package features a full band biography alongside rare photos, press cuttings and memorabilia.First ever release of band’s recordings outside of AfricaDefinitive collection: the band’s complete recorded output + exclusive unreleased radio sessionOne of the most important of Tanzania’s 1970s bands who developed their own Kitoto sound fusing soul and jazz with many traditional influences.Album and singles fully remastered for this reissue from original tapes where possible

Space Echo - The mystery behind the "Cosmic Sound" of Cabo Verde finally revealed! In the spring of 1968 a cargo ship was preparing to leave the port of Baltimore with an important shipment of musical instruments. Its final destination was Rio De Janeiro, where the EMSE Exhibition (Exposição Mundial Do Son Eletrônico) was going to be held.It was the first expo of its kind to take place in the Southern Hemisphere and many of the leading companies in the field of electronic music were involved. Rhodes, Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg, just to name a few, were all eager to present their newest synthesisers and other gadgets to a growing and promising South American market, spearheaded by Brazil and Colombia.The ship with the goods set sail on the 20th of March on a calm morning and mysteriously disappeared from the radar on the very same day. One can only imagine the surprise of the villagers of Cachaço, on the Sao Nicolau island of Cabo Verde, when a few months later they woke up and found a ship stranded in their fields, in the middle of nowhere, 8 km from any coastline.After consulting with the village elders, the locals had decided to open the containers to see what was inside - however gossip as scintillating as this travels fast and colonial police had already arrived and secured the area. Portuguese scientists and physicians were ordered to the scene and after weeks of thorough studies and research, it was concluded that the ship had fallen from the sky. One of the less plausible theories was that it might have fallen from a Russian military air carrier. The locals joked that again the government had wasted their tax money on a useless exercise, as a simple look at the crater generated by the impact could explain the phenomena. "No need for Portuguese rocket scientists to explain this!" they laughed.What the villagers didn't know, was that traces of cosmic particles were discovered on the boat. The bow of the ship showed traces of extreme heat, very similar to traces found on meteors, suggesting that the ship had penetrated the hemisphere at high speed. That theory also didn't make sense as such an impact would have reduced the ship to dust. Mystery permeated the event.Finally, a team of welders arrived to open the containers and the whole village waited impatiently. The atmosphere, which had been filled with joy and excitement, quickly gave way to astonishment. Hundreds of boxes conjured, all containing keyboards and other instruments which they had never seen before: and all useless in an area devoid of electricity. Disappointment was palpable. The goods were temporarily stored in the local church and the women of the village had insisted a solution be found before Sunday mass. It is said that charismatic anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral had ordered for the instruments to be distributed equally in places that had access to electricity, which placed them mainly in schools.This distribution was best thing that could have happened - keyboards found fertile grounds in the hands of curious children, born with an innate sense of rhythm who picked up the ready-to-use instruments. This in turn facilitated the modernisation of local rhythms such as Mornas, Coladeras and the highly danceable music style called Funaná, which had been banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers until 1975 due to its sensuality!The observation was made that the children who came into contact with the instruments found on the ship inherited prodigious capabilities to understand music and learn instruments. One of them was the musical genius Paulino Vieira, who by the end of the 70s would become the country´s most important music arranger.8 out of the 15 songs presented in this compilation had been recorded with the backing of the band Voz de Cabo Verde, lead by Paulino Vieira, the mastermind behind the creation and promulgation of what is known today as "The Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde".

Essential vinyl repress of the STRUT classic Nigeria 70: Sweet Times.“A landmark collection that remains a compelling journey into a time and place: Nigeria in the 1970s, when American soul and funk (along with Anglo-American blues-rock and psychedelia) infected the roots of traditional and popular West African musical styles like highlife, juju, fuji, and apala.” Dusted magazine Strut announce a brand new repress of the third instalment in the pioneering ‘Nigeria 70’ compilation series, compiled by series curator Duncan Brooker. Excavating another choice batch of rare grooves from Nigeria’s label archives, the new edition places the spotlight on some of the deeper fusions happening across the country during the 1970s as traditional guitar highlife blended with jazz and funk, hypnotic juju grooves became more progressive and young Nigerian bands came through with their own heavy West African take on U.S. soul, funk, disco and rock. As within much of the ‘Nigeria 70’ album series, all of the featured selections are previously unissued outside of Nigeria. Tracks range from the dynamite big band workout of Alex Ringo’s Moneyman & The Super 5 International to the Congolese guitar-drenched ‘Henrietta’ by the late Ali Chukwumah, former member of Stephen Osita Osadebe’s Sound Makers. Darker psych grooves from Don Isaac Ezekiel sit alongside a languorous highlife jam by the legendary Victor Olaiya and juju legend Ebenezer Obey cooks up a lilting, deeply beautiful mid-tempo groove from 1970 in a musical plea for peace. ‘Nigeria 70: Sweet Times’ is another essential celebration of the glut of incredible music that surfaced in post-independence Nigeria. This is the third edition in the acclaimed ‘Nigeria 70’ series. The first volume, released in 2001, was the first compilation of its kind to explore in depth the myriad of funk and soul fusions emerging from Nigeria during the 1970s. Strut followed this with a second edition, ‘Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump’, in 2008. ‘Nigeria 70” Sweet Times’ is compiled by Duncan Brooker and features extensive sleeve notes by writer and broadcaster Max Reinhardt.Limited new re-press of classic highlife, juju and afrobeat collection, 500 copies onlyDefinitive format: 2LP set including CD version as bonusOne of the most influential of all recent African music series which helped spawn a new market for African rare groovesAlbum fully remastered for this reissue

Limited new 15th anniversary repress of classic Afro-funk and afrobeat collection 500 copies only on a 3LP set including 2CD version and 1 CD audio documentary.Strut repress one of the all-time classic compilations of Afro-funk and Afrobeat for 2016, the first volume of the mighty Nigeria 70 series. Originally released in 2001, the album followed the death of Fela Kuti and a renewed interest in original Afrobeat among younger club-goers. Put together over a three-week trip to Lagos, it documented for the first time the explosive era when domestic bands fused traditional highlife and juju with funk, soul, rock and disco. Alongside two cuts by Fela Kuti, Nigeria 70 shone the spotlight on the incredible musicianship of artists like Segun Bucknor, Joni Haastrup and his Monomono band, Orlando Julius, saxophonist Peter King, “Guitar Boy” Victor Uwaifo, Lijadu Sisters and quirky keyboard wizard William Onyeabor among many others. Spread over 3LPs, the original edition also included a one-hour audio documentary featuring exclusive interviews with many original musicians and industry figures from the ‘70s scene, narrated by Wunmi. As well as being a valuable document of an under-rated era, Nigeria 70 was one of the first crossover albums to dig deep into the African music archives and effectively market the music to a new online audience hungry for rare grooves and unique dancefloor sounds. Since Nigeria 70, this market has widened hugely with labels like Soundway, Analog Africa and Hot Casa all working tirelessly to document rare African beats. This new pressing of the Nigeria 70 3LP set is limited to 500 copies and features the full CD version and CD audio documentary as a bonus within the package. Full artwork is also featured including John Armstrong’s extensive sleeve note history alongside rare photos.Limited new 15th Anniversary repress of classic Afro-funk and Afrobeat collection, 500 copies onlyDefinitive format: 3LP set including 2CD version and 1CD audio documentary as bonusone of the most influential of all recent African music collections which helped spawn a new market for African rare groovesalbum fully remastered for this reissue