Africa: Moonshine Lights Up the Globe With Afro-House Extravaganzas
[Afropop] Moonshine is a Montreal-based, Afro-house collective founded in 2014 by Juno-nominated musician Pierre Kwenders and his childhood friend Hervé “Coltan” Kalongo–both of Congolese decent. San Farafina, a Montrealer of Haitian and Filipino…
Africa: Cine Africa – the Kitchen, the Grenfell Tower Disaster, and the Windrush Scandal
[Afropop] On June 14, 2017, 72 residents perished in the Grenfell Tower disaster in London. Grenfell Tower was a “council house,” one of Britain’s federal government-funded buildings based on laws stretching back to 1875, meant largely for the working …
Africa: Afropop Top Videos for January 2024
[Afropop] Kickoff 2024 entries to the Afropop Top Video playlist with six great new entries. Topping the list are two featuring today’s Mama Africa, Angelique Kidjo, continuing her role as generational bridge-builder through superb collaborations with …
Africa: The Afro-Semitic Experience – ‘Unity in the Community’
[Afropop] The Afro-Semitic Experience is a six-piece ensemble of Jewish and African-American musicians dating back to the late 1990s, when Hartford-based pianist and vocalist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan met at a jam session. A quarter-century …
Morocco: Deborah Kapchan On the Gnawa of Morocco
[Afropop] Deborah Kapchan is a professor of Performance Studies at New York University, and the principle voice for Afropop Worldwide’s Hip Deep program, Traveling Spirit Masters: The Gnawa of Morocco. Professor Kapchan has been doing research in Moroc…
Morocco: The Lure and Lore of Gnawa
[Afropop] The Gnawa musical healers of Morocco are a perennial fascination within the broad tableau of the Afropop story. They bring together potent themes–slavery and its legacy of displacement and diaspora, music that induces trance and even spirit …
Africa: WOMEX 2023 – the Rundown From Ron!
[Afropop] Each year, come late October, there is a gathering of what could be described as a tribe – this year it was nearly 3000 people, from over 100 countries. There are no real rules to join this tribe, no initiations, no uniforms, and no secret ha…
Africa: Afropop Celebrates 35 Years At Sob’s in New York, Congo-Style!
[Afropop] Congo’s Samba Mapangala and the Soukous Stars animated a high-spirited Afropop Dance Party at the legendary New York nighclub SOB’s on Friday, Novemver 10th. The event was to honor of Afropop Worldwide’s 35th anniversary and SOB’s 40th. Samba…
Africa: Images of WOMEX 2023 in Spain
[Afropop] Each year when the world music expo, WOMEX, closes up shop in another European city, we get the stats. And the 23rd edition in A Coruña, Spain, was no exception. So here they are:
Africa: Etienne Sevet – the Many Adventures of the Bongo Hop
[Afropop] One of this year’s headliners at the International Festival de Nuits Afrique in Montreal this summer was The Bongo Hop.