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From: jtm@syteka.UUCP (Jim McCrae)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: NEW MUSIC???
Message-ID: <488@syteka.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 16:38:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: syteka.488
Posted: Wed Oct 10 16:38:53 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 06:41:48 EDT
References: ames.552
Lines: 26

The most interesting "new" music I've heard lately comes from Africa,
particularly Nigeria and Ghana. I've been hearing a lot on KFJC, Los
Altos. (where else?) The popular name for the form is JuJu music,
although JuJu is actually a subset of a much larger movement in Africa.
The dominant sound is similar to Salsa with a little street funk
thrown in. The rhythms are extremely infectious; the first time I
heard Faela (don't know how it's spelled or the rest of his name),
a Nigerian mainstay with a sharp political bite to his songs, I
couldn't get the rhythm guitar part out of my head for days. The song
was "Colonial Mentality" I believe, and the guitar was doing this
incessant 16th note triplet pattern over just a bunch of drums
and the continual rapid tension-release cycle was just short of
hypnotic. The influence of this stuff is already with us; David
Byrne has done probably the best job of bringing the ideas to the
attention of modern-electric-music listeners (isn't that better
that rock/pop/new-wave/blah-blah?). In the March "Guitar Player"he said that the main difference between African music and Western 
was that African music is about losing oneself in the community
while Western music is about expressing one's individuality and
separateness from the community. "Rolling Stone" has a group
record review on several imports from Africa this month. I didn't
read the article closely - it was at a friends house - but it
conveyed the main story and might serve to get anyone interested
started on where to find this stuff. 
~e
oops...this isn't mail is it.
	Jim McCrae - ...!hplabs!sytek!jtm