AFRICA 50 YEARS OF MUSIC 1960-2010... 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE... 50 YEARS OF HISTORY
AFRIQUE 50 ANS DE MUSIQUE 1960-2010... 50 ANS D'INDEPENDANCES... 50 ANS D'HISTOIRE

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18 CDs ripped at 320 kbps, with track metadata added from liner notes. The collection includes 185 songs from 39 African countries, grouped by region.

This is my first torrent; if you like it, please comment or at least seed it! Thanks.


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Review from The Guardian (UK):

In 1960, British prime minister Harold Macmillan gave a speech in Cape Town in which he proclaimed "a wind of change blowing through this continent". Macmillan was speaking after his government had granted independence to one British colony (Ghana) and before it handed independence to its neighbour, Nigeria. By the end of the year, the two west African states had been joined by another 15, among them Mali, Senegal and Congo.


If 1960, then, makes a convenient birthday for African independence, with a little sleight of hand 2010 becomes a 50th anniversary for African music. At least, that's the reasoning behind Africa: 50 Years of Music, an 18-CD set of 185 recordings from 39 countries that claims to be "the most comprehensive compilation of African music ever achieved". This ambitious history lesson is the brainchild of producer Ibrahim Sylla, a principal player in the Afro-Parisian scene of the 80s, when artists such as Salif Keita, Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour first crossed over to European audiences. If there is a problem with the set, it's with the very notion of "African music" as a generic entity.

"It's a very large generalisation," concedes Robert Urbanus of Sterns, the veteran London-based label that has helped bring the project to fruition. "It's like 'American music' – it encompasses so much, probably too much."

Writing in the liner notes, the great saxophonist Manu Dibango, concurs: "In my country alone, Cameroon, there are 80 ethnic groups and 200 dialects, so it's hard to talk about Cameroonian music in the singular." Apply Dibango's point to encompass the continent and you are presented with an intricate patchwork of musics. Still, as an overview of Africa's prolific output and as a guide to its genres, 50 Years is admirable, its music unfailingly classy, and its very existence testimony to the much-changed perception of African music over recent decades.

Urbanus has witnessed that shift of perception from the music industry's frontline. "When we invented the 'world' label in the 1980s," he says, "we were trying to extricate African artists from being filed in the same record bin as Tyrol beer-drinking anthems, trying to show African music was not about drums and grass skirts."

By comparison, we live in an age of sophistication, where Nigerian Afrobeat and Malian desert blues are carefully distinguished even by western audiences who have come to the music via enthusiasts such as Damon Albarn and Vampire Weekend. Lovingly researched compilations of antique Africana, concentrating on the 1960s and 1970s, have also blossomed recently, sometimes resurrecting careers. "Acts like Senegal's Orchestra Baobab or Benin's Orchestre Poly-Rythmo are forgotten in their own country," says Urbanus, "but they can now tour Europe or even America."

The changes in African music are in many instances tied to the tides of the post-colonial era. West Africa's large orchestras, much influenced by Cuban music, fell apart as post-independence euphoria was dashed by corruption, economic collapse and dictatorship. Many musicians simply fled abroad, with Paris their preferred destination. That city became the crucible for a new spirit of Afro-modernity, with Ibrahim Sylla, in particular, bringing technological know-how and a radical ear to the numerous west African exiles shuttling between their homeland and the new frontiers of Europe. As author Mark Hudson puts it in his essay in 50 Years of Music: "The principal site in the development wasn't now the nightclub or the concert hall but the airport."

The crossover breakthroughs that followed have proved hard to maintain. "One problem is that the music becomes a novelty that fades," says Urbanus. "Nigeria's Sunny Adé was hailed when he was promoted here in the 80s, but after three albums people started to think, 'Do I want another juju album?' It's difficult to achieve longevity."

At £65, the box set certainly represents a bargain, and while its focus is on the past, the seeds of Africa's next generation are also here: hip-hop from South Africa's Tumi and the Volume, the manic Congotronics of the Kasai Allstars and the eclectic London-based the Very Best. Just over the horizon are synth-driven dance genres such as Sierra Leone's bubu and the Ivory Coast's coupé décalé that will take the continent's story into the next half-century.