Africa Unsigned is an Amsterdam-based start-up music label founded by Pim Betist that promotes African artists. Under Mr Betist’s watch, Africa Unsigned has invested €525,000 (about $725,000) in helping more than 40 artists and bands tour and release albums that represent what they deem the “new African sound,” such as Kenya’s acoustic vocal group Sauti Sol. “I like to call them the East African Boyz II Men,” Mr Betist says.

“The music industry is broken, and we have to fix it,” Mr Betist said. He is confident that can be done. Africa Unsigned relies heavily on a fan-funding platform similar to the one employed by Mr Betist’s previous effort Sellaband.com, which eventually went bankrupt but has since re-launched.

Mr Betist is not the only taste-maker focusing his efforts on Africa. After promoting successful, Grammy award-winning American hip hop and soul artists like The Roots and Erykah Badu for more than a decade, the Brooklyn-based online hip-hop community OkayPlayer now has a sister site called OkayAfrica that promotes African musicians in similar genres. Unlike Africa Unsigned, OkayAfrica is not a standard record label, but it has committed $500,000 to developing an online platform for such artists as Seun and Femi Kuti, K’naan, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew, and Afrikan Boy.

“We’re looking to break the mold of ‘world music’ and highlight those on the continent really pushing the boundaries and innovating with cutting edge music,” said Ginny Suss, OkayAfrica’s site manager. “Forward-thinking stuff that fuses hip hop, electronic music, and reggae with more traditional sounds.”

Sales fluctuate. K’Naan, for example, sold 70,000 albums in 2009 but dropped to 44,000 in 2010. But his digital album sales rocketed from 233,000 in 2009 to 485,000 in 2010.

A 2010 UN report claims that demand for music and other “creative industry” products has remained stable during the global recession, and global exports of creative goods and services, e.g. music, more than doubled between 2002 and 2008. The report concluded that for developing countries, creative industries could prove to be “one of the most dynamic sectors of world commerce.” Africa is mentioned throughout the report, as is the Creative Africa initiative, a long-term strategy to help the continent benefit economically from its creative talents and cultural heritage.

Earlier this year Wired Magazine described an “entrepreneurial boom” in Africa full of “vast new tech opportunity.” Aware of this, Africa Unsigned makes their music available through mobile phones, whose availabilty and use have soared throughout Africa since the late 1990s.

Last March, at a “Marketing 21st Century Music in Africa” discussion panel at the annual South By Southwest festival (SXSW) in Texas, Ngozi Odita, who lives in New York and describes herself as a curator of comtemporary African culture, argued that music and culture is Africa’s strongest export. As evidence, she cites Kanye West, the award winning hip-hop artist and producer who earlier this year signed Nigerian musicians D’Banj and Don Jazzy to G.O.O.D music, the record label and artist management firm he founded in 2004. Artists on African record labels such as Storm 360 regularly tour Africa and overseas.

Ms Odita, originally from Nigeria, runs the media site Society HAE, a hub for contemporary African culture and music. This summer she organised “Live From the Continent,” an event at the Lincoln Center at which African artists such as South Africa’s Spoek Mathambo performed. She is producing a music showcase of 12 African music acts this spring at SXSW.

“In the 90s, they always said there was a brain drain in Africa. People got their education, and then left the country. Now, people believe they can be successful in their own countries,” she argues. “It’s indicative of the opportunities now available on the continent, and the direction the country is moving in. People have their own vision. There’s been a changing of the guard. Artists are making music, but are conscious of what their role is, wanting Africa to be different than the Africa they have known.”

The full story is at the ECONOMIST

Photo: Nick Klaus

Mr Kuti took a minute out of his busy tour schedule to respond to a few questions over e-mail about Afrobeat, African politics and touring.

Your new album, “From Africa With Fury: Rise”, seems in sync with recent revolutionary events in some North African countries. Is your music a soundtrack for this revolution?

I think my music is a soundtrack for all Africa not just the revolutionaries. It’s all about keen observation of the situation of people’s lives, and you know there is not a lot more people can take.

You mentioned recently that you were thinking of starting your own political party. If you did, what would your first priority be?

No comment.

Your new album was produced by Brian Eno and John Reynolds. How have they helped shape your sound?

Brian has been a good supporter of me and my music for about two years now. I asked him in May last year if he will help with producing the album and he agreed. I had a great time producing the album with these guys in London because they opened up the sound in many ways. We all had the same idea of what we wanted it to sound like, so it was easy to get it done. But the ideas they came up with were nothing short of genius. They easily took the album up another 80%, at least.

What are you most excited about with your new album? How does it differ most from your previous work?

I am most excited about the evolution of my sound. It doesn’t change but it has become a lot more mature and confident. I think people will notice that. This album makes you feel the struggle of the black continent—even if people don’t understand the pidgin English lyrics, they can understand the passion in the songs.

What music are young people today in West Africa listening to?

Well I personally think I am not the average African youth because of my exposure to the world and my upbringing in relations to music and politics. Music in Africa is all about MTV and what is out there on the TV and radio. Real music is not given a chance.

Are young people forming new Afrobeat bands in Nigeria?

No they are not. I meet a lot of young men and women who are totally inspired by Afrobeat music, but they can’t practice because of the economic and social restraint of producing real music in Africa today. Most youth go the commercial music way cos its a short-cut that is cheap and affordable. There’s no welfare in Africa so whatever you are doing has to pay the bills or the band collapses. People have to feed themselves and their families. But I know things will change and people will sacrifice well-being for the opportunity to speak for themselves. This is the new Africa as you can see in Tunisia already. People are gonna speak for themselves and Afrobeat will be their voice!

What do you enjoy most about touring?

I am looking forward the most to the screaming fans everywhere in the world.

What is it like to play with your father’s former band, Egypt 80?

Because I am almost like family with them it makes it a happy workplace. It is not a fairytale land far away; we have our differences, but we get over them easily. I think the biggest challenge was to make everyone believe in a life after Fela, and they have challenged me to keep that faith!

The message of Egypt 80 is quite unique to that of any other band. With this band it’s not just the music; the emancipation of the our continent is a major factor as well. Musically Afrobeat is interesting and people can learn a lot from that, but the Egypt 80 is also the voice of the common man in Africa and the world. Everyone can relate to some extent because we are all living the struggle.

How do you think Afrobeat has changed since your father, Fela Kuti, began playing it back in the late 1960s and early ’70s?

I think Afrobeat is growing in terms of popularity. The music itself is very powerful as well, but the major growth now is in new listeners—that’s what I believe has changed the most.

Reissued Afrobeat music from the ’70s has become more available, and the “Fela!” musical has enjoyed success in America and Britain, and it recently travelled to Lagos. In what ways do you see Afrobeat’s audience growing?

I think the play has made people understand what Fela stood for. It has taken the story of Fela to a new audience. Afrobeat is growing because everyone want to hear some real music with a message, every artist wants to be able to speak his mind. The more the people want justice and equality the bigger Afrobeat gets.

Seun Kuti’s new album, “From Africa With Fury Rise”, will be released in North America in June

The full interview is at the ECONOMIST, and INTELLIGENT LIFE.

In 2004 Florent de La Tullaye and Renaud Barret encountered Leon “Ricky” Likabu playing music on the streets of Kinshasa. A victim of poliomyelitis, he was joined by fellow wheelchair-bound musicians and street youth. Together, with old beat-up or hand-made instruments, the group played what could only be described as folk music: honest, heart-felt songs about life’s beauty and pain. They called themselves Staff Benda Bilili, which translates to “see beyond appearances” or “put forward what is hidden.”

A few years later, after Tullaye and Barret introduced the group to the Crammed Discs record label, they recorded an album at a local zoo, where they often slept and rehearsed. Word spread—as did copies of the CD—and Likabu and his band were soon performing their unique Congolese music to audiences across Europe. The band’s journey (now much YouTubed) is the subject of “Benda Bilili!,” a documentary film by Tullaye and Barret, two Frenchmen, that screened recently at the BFI London Film Festival.

The full blog post, on 2010 London Film Festival films about unconventional music scenes, is at INTELLIGENT LIFE and also at the ECONOMIST. The story also continues here, after the jump.

“[Ricky] told us in 2004 they would be the most famous disabled band ever,” Tullaye told the London audience during a Q&A after the screening. “And their lives have now changed dramatically. They are no more in the streets. They all have houses, they’ve opened little businesses, and they’ve put all of their children in schools.”

“Benda Bilili!” is an earnest and funny film. After prolonged, uncensored exposure to these brazen personalities, it’s easy to feel invested in and connected to these musicians. By the time they’re toasting their newfound success over rum in a hotel room in Oslo, you’re right there with them.

“Benda Bilili” was one of several films at the recent London Film Festival to explore unconventional music scenes around the world.

Another notable film was “The Taqwacores”, a feature about a group of young Muslims who bask in the self-expression and aggressiveness of punk rock while grappling with the demands of Islam. Directed by Eyad Zahra and adapted from a novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, the film takes place in a run-down household in Buffalo, New York.

The lone female resident wears a full burqa covered in safety-pins and patches with phrases such as “Who would Jesus bomb?” She crosses out sections of the Koran that she doesn’t like, has a framed quote from Patti Smith in her bedroom and a Banksy book on her shelf. The leader of the house has a bright-red Mohawk, wears Alternative Tentacles T-shirts and has dreams about chilling out with Johnny Cash.

The young Muslims living in the house debate Islam, smoke a lot of cigarettes, go skateboarding, host group prayers and, in the final scenes of the film, host a big house party for several West Coast (“Khalifornia”) Taqwacore bands to perform at. “Just like Sid Vicious wearing the swastika, Taqwacore is punk up the fuckin’ ass, man,” one Muslim punk explains.

“Microphone,” a new film by Ahmad Abdalla, was originally conceived as documentary about a Banksy-influenced stencil artist in Alexandria named Khaled. But it grew to become a larger look at the city’s counterculture movement, including many of the unknown Alexandria bands Khaled had worked with and created artwork for.

The result is a sympathetic story about the struggle of musicians in a city where places to rehearse and perform are thin on the ground. Residents complain that live music disrupts afternoon prayer, and police shut down an attempt to stage a show at a local coffee shop.

There is no big triumph for these musicians by the end of the film, just a loose feeling of hopeful solidarity. As the closing credits roll, they take a seat on the rocks by the sea, strap on their guitars and sing for each other. As one bummed-out singer earlier in the film puts it, their life is like “a mirage on a grain of dust.”

Onstage, 68-year-old Mulatu Astatke is as subtle and understated as the Ethiopian jazz he created. The music, a hybrid of traditional Ethiopian music and jazz, is subdued, somewhat melancholy, and at times psychedelic. Mr Astatke, the originator and composer of songs in this canon, plays his principal instrument, the vibraphone, with a light touch. Between songs, there is no small talk. He thanks the crowd, and coolly introduces the next number.

Mr Astatke has completed a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard and been an artist-in-residence at MIT in recent years. But the seeds of his “Ethio-jazz” were planted in the 1950s and 1960s when he studied classical and jazz composition in Britain and America and honed his techniques while at Berklee College of Music, where he was the first African student. On visits to New York he hung out with jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and performed with the Duke Ellington orchestra in Ethiopia in the 1970s.

The full interview with Mulatu Astatke is at the ECONOMIST. The interview also continues here, after the jump.

Mr Astatke’s name resurfaced in 2005, when his compositions appeared in the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers. A busy time of performing, recording, teaching, and composing has since followed.

Mr Astatke is doing a world tour at the moment and Baobab spoke to him on his London stop when he performed at the Barbican Centre with the London-based group, The Heliocentrics.

Baobab: While at Berklee in the late 1950s and early 1960s, you started to combine what you were learning about jazz theory with the Ethiopian music you had grown up with. How did that happen?

Mulatu Astatke: My experiences in Boston and New York opened my eyes. I became a student of jazz composition and learnt how the music comes together. It helped me quite a lot, and helped me to find Ethio-jazz. There were so many great musicians at that time, and I lined up with everyone else to watch them. I met John Coltrane, I saw Bud Powell. Now I see people lining up to see me in Paris and Berlin. That’s so beautiful to me. I’ve been very lucky.

Baobab: Since then you seem to have focused on fusing traditional Ethiopian music with jazz and worked hard to develop a distinct voice and style. Is that fair?

MA: Fusion and contribution, that’s my thing. There have been tribes in Ethiopia for centuries. Then we see Charlie Parker and the music he’s playing using diminished chords. I always say that Africa gave to jazz its whole feeling and conception. Not only the drums, but the science. Musicians are like scientists, just with different chemicals. There’s no difference between science and music, we just deal with sound. We are scientists of sound.

Baobab: Ethio-jazz has a melancholy sound to it. Why is that?

MA: We play five against twelve. This is a pentatonic scale that has been fused with a 12-tone progression. My thing was to combine these two without losing our character. The five is floating on top. You see this in Asia, in Japan, in Algeria. We have four different modes, and three modes for church music. It’s very beautiful. It’s all in how you approach the scales and the notes.

Baobab: You’ve opened a jazz village in Addis to train young Ethiopian musicians. What are your goals for the centre?

MA: It’s an information centre. We host jazz concerts and Ethiopian plays, and teach Ethio-jazz. We want to promote music to young pupils who have talent but who have never had a chance. We’re teaching the science of music—arranging, composing. I tell my students, learn the science of music first, don’t just jump in too quick. There is a line you have to follow.

Baobab: What kind of music are your students interested in?

MA: Lots want to study Ethio-jazz, but many like dancehall, reggae and hip hop—music with more dancing and jumping. There are few outlets for classical and jazz. There are more and more guitar and bass players now because all they see on television is people with guitars jumping up and down.

Baobab: Your music was featured in the soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 film Broken Flowers. How did that collaboration come together?

MA: I was playing in New York and I was told he was coming to the show. I didn’t know who he was but said to invite him anyway. He said he had been looking for the right music for his film for six years, and he thought my music was it. I said “no problem”. Six months later he called, and that was it. And people have loved it.

Baobab: In what other ways has your music reached a wider audience?

MA: I’ve been sampled by hip-hop artists like Naz and now the Somali rapper K’Naan. Man, it’s exploding, I tell you.

Baobab: You recently composed a score for an Ethiopian film called “Lalumbe.” How did you approach the project?

MA: The film is a love story about people from the Hamer tribe in the south of Ethiopia. This was the first time I’ve worked with their tribal music and culture—hey hold drums on their back and jump and clap. I used different instruments and dancers to create beautiful fusion music for the film.

Baobab: You’re also working on an opera. How is it shaping up?

MA: I’m still working on it. The composition includes excerpts from Ethiopian hymns for Lent. The opera will include choirs, strings, trombones, and an ancient Ethiopian conducting stick. I hope to perform it in a church in Lalibela in North Ethiopia that is carved from a single stone and also in Europe. I decided to work on this project while I was at Harvard. It will be a big challenge for me but I want to see what people will say.

Baobab: Do you think that the music you’ve created over the years is revolutionary?

MA: It’s a cultural revolution. Why not give the world something different?. As long as you can play your own music and combine it with something else, you will have no problems. But it is a challenge, a beautiful and great challenge.

Photo: passetti

But while local businesses enjoy the benefits of tourism, Morocco’s surfers want their breaks back. The surf companies here are foreign-owned, and although they employ Moroccans as instructors, drivers, guides, cooks and cleaning crews, they are still outsiders. Graffiti scrawled on the crumbling wall of a former anchor factory at Taghazout’s most amazing break, Anchor Point, declares “Surf camps go home” in English.

As tourists surfing Morocco’s waves, we’re contributing to the country’s third-largest source of income.

The full story is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.

Her full story is at POP AND POLITICS and also continues here, after the jump.

A Berkeley-based conceptual artist who strives in her work to create challenging “immersive experiences”, Banks in 2004 was eager to trace the origins of the sweet treat she had consumed much of but only recently had begun thinking about critically. “I started to read more information on packages, like percentages of milk, whether or not the chocolate was bitter, or whether it was a single bean or single plantation bar,” Banks says. “I was curious about what that meant.”

During her trips to Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Cuba, she relied on the good will of cocoa farmers and locals, who were often suspicious, but curious. They wanted to spend time with her and get to know her before they took her onto the farms. She says the experience was extreme. The heat was oppressive. There were usually no maps, no train schedules and no cars.

The poverty was beyond what she had anticipated. She didn’t feel as self-sufficient as she did back home. She had to trust complete strangers. Daily journal entries now posted as an online travelogue kept her sane. Her journal is a reflection of her art, both the fully immersed process by which she makes it and the fully immersed experience it can provide. In a brief excerpt from 12 September 2004, entitled “Last Day in Ghana,” she writes about food and disease and faith and popculture in revealing juxtaposition:

women rarely drive. i saw no women driving taxis, tro-tros or buses.goat meat is a delicacy. bush meat, a wild rodent, is a common menu item.to Ghanaians, Nigeria is a bad word. all things Nigerian are corrupt. except for “Nollywood”, the exploding industry of low budget soap operatic movies from Nigeria that are flooding the West African market. i’ve seen a few. very funny.everyone wears chaleywatahs (flip-flops) even chiefs.typical business name:

music:
high life
hip life
Celine Dion
lot’s of Beyonce and R Kelly

“I could not have anticipated how people there reacted to me,” Banks says. “People not understanding how or why there is an ‘African American.’ So many people did not know slavery had happened. The whole idea of black people in America was, to many of them, a result of some sort of privilege. I went through a lot of emotions. I felt so many things.

Once inside cacao farms near the Ivory Coast one of world’s top three cocoa producers, Banks watched farmers cut seeds from the fruit and dry them. She learned that the product is purely for export, that the farmers don’t eat the chocolate they help produce, and that large numbers of children perform the grueling work of cocoa farming. Although the Ivory Coast produced more than 40 percent of the world’s cocoa supply in 2004-2005, it remains one of the International Monetary Fund’s most heavily indebted poor countries.

The State Department reported in 2000 that about 15,000 children had been sold into forced labor on cocoa, cotton and coffee plantations there in recent years. Banks says conversations with farmers, who typically spoke no English, consisted mostly of hand gestures. She met a few Americans who were able to translate some indigenous languages. Families living on farms were amazingly generous and offered her meals. She later traveled to New York to watch brokers trading cocoa at the Board of Trade. In time, she was able to trace cocoa from farmer to trader to herself: the quintessential chocolate lover.

Banks drew on her personal experience and research to create Free Chocolate, a solo exhibit on display through February 17 at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. A publicity photo for the exhibit shows Banks with her index finger silencing her closed mouth, her eyes blindfolded with Hersheys and Cadbury chocolate bar labels. In the gallery a Candid Camera type video recording shows people walking down the street and deciding whether or not to sample free chocolate placed on a table in the middle of a sidewalk.

A sequence of photographs and postcards from Africa and Cuba show images of cocoa farms and farmers, and feature a chain of facts about the cocoa industry. A micro chocolate shop offers products inspired by and based on chocolate.

“I wanted to help explain to people that chocolate comes from somewhere, and we don’t think about it a lot, Banks says. I didn’t try to push a position about fair trade, but to just present information in a visually stimulating way.”

Banks is still exploring her own conflicted feelings about chocolate, her love for it on the one side and the knowing how it is produced on the other, looking for a way to reconcile the two. Her show is one small step. She also participated in a panel discussion on fair trade with members of Global Exchange and TransFair USA. Her next project is to create a series of images that resemble vintage cocoa advertisements but that evidence a political awareness. They’ll contain images and information about what’s happening today on cocoa farms worldwide. “I call it a guilty pleasure, Banks, 34, says. “There’s so much more I could talk about and want to talk about. I could easily do another two or three chocolate shows.”