\n<\/p>\n
\u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n The Mali-based collective Tinariwen<\/a> is part of the fabric of modern Tuareg history; its founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, fled the country as a child after his rebel father was killed by government forces in an uprising. For decades now, Tinariwen has set the standard for Tuareg bands with tightly coordinated rhythms led by Ag Alhabib, whose electric guitar sometimes seems to humbly pray. \u201cMatadjem Yinmixan,\u201d about Tuareg unity, has a groove so locked-in it could practically be a dance hit \u2014 when I saw the band at Coachella 15 years ago, every hip under that tent was in motion.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n A Nigerien musician of roughly the same generation as Mdou Moctar, Bombino<\/a> has also made inroads in the American rock world, recording with members of the Black Keys and Dirty Projectors. And he shreds, for sure, though Bombino is a subtler stylist than Moctar, here calling to mind lyrical players like Ry Cooder.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n In the 1970s and \u201980s, this Senegalese band epitomized a fascinating kind of cultural transfer that had crisscrossed the Atlantic: musicians in Africa absorbing and refracting Afro-Cuban dance styles that had originally descended from enslaved Africans in the New World. Led by the guitarist Barth\u00e9l\u00e9my Attisso, who made complex arpeggiated runs sound as simple and joyful as a mambo step, Orchestra Baobab had a seemingly bottomless repertoire of sweetly melodic, irresistibly breezy tracks like \u201cCoumba.\u201d Seeing them play in Central Park on a perfect summer day in 2002 is a cherished memory for me.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n A Nigerian polymath, Uwaifo was never a star on the level of Fela Kuti or Oliver Mtukudzi, although he did tour the West, reaching the Village Vanguard<\/a> in New York in 1970. In the 2000s his work was rediscovered and anthologized, and it\u2019s eccentric and vibrant, with touches of vintage African highlife style, raw R&B and some wild-man guitar solos. This track is one of a series based on a traditional coronation dance called an ekassa, though in notes to a reissue Uwaifo describes it as a song by construction workers, \u201cmeant to serve as a warning that if the client doesn\u2019t pay them, then the house will fall down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n One of Africa\u2019s most admired guitarists, the virtuosic Tounkara<\/a> was the longtime lead player in the Rail Band (a.k.a. Super Rail Band), a popular Malian group that, like Orchestra Baobab, was born out of Africa\u2019s midcentury craze for Latin music. On this sparkling acoustic track, Tounkara plays a romantic, flamenco-style lead, showing off his chops for a solid minute and a half before the vocals come in; he could have gone on forever.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n A titan of 20th-century African culture, Kuti was a musical and political revolutionary who used the unruly power of his huge funk band in challenging Nigeria\u2019s military government in the 1970s. Brawny horns take the melodic center stage in most of Fela\u2019s music, though he makes highly effective use of guitars as a kind of percussion element, as James Brown did. Led by Oghene Kologbo, Fela\u2019s guitarists on \u201cZombie\u201d \u2014 a mocking censure of soldiers blindly following orders \u2014 play a sequence of continuously interlocking riffs, like wheels that never stop turning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n4. Tinariwen: \u201cMatadjem Yinmixan\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
5. Bombino: \u201cTar Hani\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
6. Orchestra Baobab: \u201cCoumba\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
7. Sir Victor Uwaifo: \u201cIgboroho (Ekassa 5)\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
8. Djelimady Tounkara: \u201cFanta Bourama\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
9. Fela Kuti and Africa 70: \u201cZombie\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n