Africa 50 Years of Music Disc Set
Africa 50 Years of Music collects 183 classic Speak No Evil
recordings by 183 important artists from 38
Gathering Seaweed: African Prison
countries in North, South, East and West Africa.
Writing edited by Jack Mapanje
The artists include universal stars such as Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti, Youssou N Dour, Franco, This anthology introduces the African literature of Cheb Khaled, Cesaria Evora, Mulatu Astatke, Salif incarceration to the general reader, the scholar, Keita, Manu Dibango and Oum Kalsoum. The
the activist and the student. The visions and prison tracks, licensed from some of the world s most cries of the few African nationalists imprisoned respected record companies, are all original studio by colonialists, who later became leaders of their recordings or, in a few cases, famous concert independent dictatorships and in turn imprisoned performances. Most of them were made in the their own writers and other radicals, are brought 50 years from 1960 to 2010 the era of African into sharper focus, thereby critically exposing independence but two landmark Egyptian classics the ironies of varied generations of the efforts of date from the 1940s. Some of the songs included freedom fighters.
are: Pata Pata, Soul Makossa, Yeke Yeke, Sweet Contributors include: Kunle Ajibade, Obafemi Mother, Mario, Shakara, Jive Soweto. Others Awolowo, Steve Biko, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis will be revelations to even the most dedicated Brutus, Nawal El Saadawi, M J Kariuki, Kenneth record collectors. The deluxe longbox set includes Kaunda, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Nelson
a 60-page book of photographs, record-cover Mandela, Emma Mashinini, Felix Mnthali, Augustino reproductions, specially-commissioned artwork Nato, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kwame Nkrumah, Abe and essays by experts on each of Africa’s popular Sachs, Ken Saro Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, and Koigi wa styles.
Wamwere.