“Its 28 tracks were almost all recorded during a brief ‘golden age’ between the slackening of Emperor Haile Selassie’s rule in the late 1960s and his overthrow by President Mengistu’s Derg dictatorship in 1974. The Frenchman Francis Falceto, who has curated the series on his Buda Musique label, talks of “Swinging Addis Ababa”, Africa’s equivalent to London’s 1960s effervescence. Here, American funk and jazz opened up a music scene too proudly nationalistic to admit other African influences, resulting in a surreally unique brew.” via Nick Hasted’s verbose but enthusiastic review in the Independent in 2007.
I’m going to start experimenting with Blip.fm to bring more African music to my tumblog and twitter.
