Reddit mentions: The best african music

I don't know if this answer will be acceptable, because I don't have sources for everything at hand anymore and it was a long time since I studied this topic, but as a former music student, I can hopefully tell you at least some things. I can't answer the first question, but maybe I can get you closer to having an answer to the others.

Generally speaking, in order to reconstruct music from ancient times, there are a few things that we need to know:

1. Instrumentation: What actual instruments were used? Can we make comparable instruments still, or have some important details been lost? Etc.
   
2. Musical scales/temperament: What notes were the instruments tuned to play? The thing here is that we are mostly accustomed to what's called the equal tempered scale, wherein 12 notes are equally distributed according to steps of the 12th root of 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament), which is itself a compromise solution with some interesting reasons behind it... But the important thing here is that the scales we're used to hearing and playing our instruments with did not exist, and probably could not have existed. So what notes did they use? What was their tuning basis? How precise were their tuning and construction methods?
   
3. Compositions: Basically, how were the instruments played to make coherent pieces of music? Is there a written record of some kind, and if so, how well are we able to interpret it? Is there a surviving tradition that we have good reason to think represents ancient compositions?
   
   There might be some more things we can think of (space and acoustics, cultural context, etc), but the list above should get us basically to the heart of the question of the music itself. As a general note, I should say that it is completely inevitable that all of these elements would have changed over the incredibly long lifespan of ancient Egypt, so probably any meaningful historical accuracy would have to try to narrow down a timeframe.
   
   With respect to instruments, I'm aware that we have written and archeological evidence of the types of instruments they used. There are also academic efforts also to reconstruct these instruments (https://web.archive.org/web/20050531222650/http://www.phmusic.gov.eg/news/Natinal%20project%20in%20english%20.doc). Most of the instruments they made are no longer made, though basic ideas are familiar in many cases (as with flutes and stringed instruments). Still, I should stress that even the reconstruction of their instruments is an ongoing effort. So in order to have a chance at authenticity, we would probably need a composition that only requires instruments that we can accurately recreate with some degree of confidence.
   
   With respect to scales and temperaments, we can get some ideas from existing flutes. Flutes are good because if they're well-preserved, we might even still be able to play them! They give very good ideas of notes and note ratios. An example of this type of investigation can be found here: http://egyptsound.free.fr/fathi.htm
   (Note that you can hear an actual ancient Egyptian flute being played from that page, e.g. http://egyptsound.free.fr/sounds/EgyptSound_RealAudio/01_Flute_69817.ra )
   With this information, we can indeed reconstruct at least some of the scales they used, and we can also conclude that some of those scales remained consistent across time and geography, which gives reasonable confidence that by using one of those scales, we would have a meaningful claim to be using the scales of (at least some extended period of) ancient Egypt.
   
   The question of surviving compositions, however, seems to be where we fall short. Basically, we have attempts at "creative reconstruction" (https://www.amazon.com/Ankh-Sound-Ancient-MICHAEL-ATHERTON/dp/B00000AEP0) that are about as good as it's likely to get. Even if we were to accurately identify a written record as some kind of musical notation (which, to my knowledge, we have not when it comes to ancient Egypt), the interpretation of that notation would still be exceedingly difficult. To give a rough idea, our current musical notation system revolves around implicit trained knowledge of what each position on a musical staff represents. We know that a certain note is a "C" or an "E" or whatever because we decided on these values somewhat arbitrarily, and there's nothing inherent to our notation system that might tip a future historian off about which note is which if they only had access to a musical staff and the extra-notational knowledge had been lost. Even when we have some surviving ancient musical notation (as is the case with ancient Mesopotamia), attempts to realize it have been somewhat varied because they are all still "interpretations".
   
   The popularized sound you're used to associating with ancient Egypt is unlikely to be derived from any meaningful historical evidence, though the cultural influence of ancient Egypt may mean that some of its musical features have survived in various forms in musical styles of the modern middle east. In any case, we have no direct surviving music from them, so various interpretations and guesses are about as good as we're getting.
   
   As to how we got the ideas we have and when, I'll have to leave that to others.

> There is no intrinsic quality to modern American music to me anymore

There's an extremely obvious rebuttal to this. Can you guess what it is? ;)

Clue: I'm not sure I can pick just 1, but of my top 3 albums discovered/bought this year, one is from Senegal. Not eligible for this list anyway, being from 2007, but the point is I can't fathom limiting musical exploration to a given nation state. Another is from still more years back... but it was still brand new to me. So basically, why stick to modern and/or American music, considering it's not like you're already thoroughly familiar with all music made in times past and/or the rest of the world, right?

Btw I guess I may be preaching to the choir here, and that was your whole point, I don't know. I'm not aiming that at you personally. I just thought I'd chime in at this juncture, being as your comment struck a chord in a few ways.

> Musically, it's gotten almost too simple.

This for example... gah... I just commented elsewhere, "I am now forcing myself to youtube stuff from this list ... in the hope of destroying my preconceptions". Hit the first result for Phoenix and had my worst preconceptions confirmed and then some. Piano bashing away on a straight quarter note rhythm, on a chord sequence that sounds vaguely reminiscent of every other pop/rock song of the last 40 years ever, while the bass plucks roots notes on beat one every couple of bars, and I can't even bring myself to care what lyrics the singer is coming out with because he sounds like such a giant watery bedwetter, the drums and overall mood are somewhat jangly and bright but with a seemingly calculated edge of being too cool to try very hard or seem too happy, so no true sense of uncontrolled joie de vivre... it's basically a perfect archetype of everything which powerfully turns me off indie bands... (braces for downvotes)... anyway I let myself rant rather off course, but the point being, yes, it's pretty musically simple and formulaic, with harmony, rhythm and instrumentation alike about as safely familiar as they could possibly be.

However

> I don't think there was a single new album that came out this year that I really enjoyed

I can't really agree with this. Truth be told I'm not the best person to challenge it, because I don't really care about buying new stuff or not, so I've only bought a dozen or so 2009 releases, in between doing tons of fleshing out of past decades' output. Even so, this simply blew me away, this was a delight, this struck me as dubstep's musically richest lp yet, this and this were solid if not exactly vast progression from previous releases, while this and this were only disappointing to me because their respective predecessors were too jawdropping to realistically repeat, not because they were at all unenjoyable.

Of course standard disclaimers apply and I don't pretend to claim anybody else's taste is poor, or any business but their own, or that my taste is awesome, or at all likely to be shared by you or anybody else.

Soukous: For an introduction, I'd recommend The Rough Guide to Franco/Le TP OK Jazz. Some of the earliest examples on the album have a Cuban rhumba feel. My favourites by him would be Chacun Pour Soi and Infidélité mado

Other artists I'd recommend - Diblo Dibala who played guitar with various groups including on this track Iyole and Sam Mangwana - Suzana

Zouk has popularity in both the Francophone areas of the Caribbean and West Africa. I highly recommend ANYTHING by the group Kassav', since they've been so influential. Much of their music is sampled by artists outside the genre. The albums Majestik Zouk and Vini Pou. I consider Rété their best track.


African zouk - Afrik Melody by Chorus and Bod Guibert 's Si Man Lé Save

Bonus: If you like Latin music, you may be interested in the parang music of Trinidad/Tobago . A type of Christmas music that is sung usually in Spanish ( it originated in Venezuela). Daisy Voisin-Goipe

Michael Atherton (not to be confused with the English sports figure of the same name) is a musician/scholar who did this fantastic album of Ancient Egyptian music that you might be interested in. Some of it is his own settings of real Ancient Egyptian music and some is just Egypt-inspired, but it all uses ancient instrumentation and even Ancient Egyptian lyrics. Here's my favorite track. To be honest I wish it sounded a little bit less Western or "New Age-y" (there's more influence in there from European musical traditions than Middle Eastern or African ones, particularly in the vocals) but it's still really great and atmospheric.

I didn’t know he had a son who had a band. thanks. While reading your comment, i was reminded of Fela Kuti's son Femi, who i saw at the Trocadero in philly years ago. Late 90’s. It was one of the best concerts i have ever been to. fucking absolutely amazing. If you ever get a chance to see Femi Kuti, it’s a must must man, i tell you.
Dis album is amazing man.
https://www.amazon.com/Femi-Kuti/dp/B000006M99/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1467405682&sr=8-4&keywords=femi+kuti


A song not on the album above. But it will show you who dis man is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJLpjEIyxM&index=16&list=PLB_vAA7W3-Wq0HY72SdyECLHt5waVCDcx

| | |
|-:|:-|
|artist|Salif Keita|
|about artist|Salif Keita (b. 25 August 1949), is an internationally recognized afro-pop singer and songwriter from Djoliba, Mali. He has a reputation as the "Golden Voice of Africa", he is also a descendant of the Mali Empire's founder, Sundiata Keita. He was outcast by his family and ostracized by the community, because he was an albino - a sign of bad luck in Mandinka culture. In 1967, he left Djoliba for Bamako, where he joined the government-sponsored Super Rail Band De Bamako (aka Super Rail Band). In 1973, Keita joined the group Les Ambassadeurs. ([more on last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Salif Keita))|
|album|Ko-Yan, released May 2003|
|track|Fe-So|
|images|album image, artist image|
|links|wikipedia, official homepage, twitter, [discogs](http://www.discogs.com/artist/Salif Keita), youtube, facebook|
|cd|Get the CD from amazon!|
|player|http://radd.it/r/listentothis/comments/1j8udv/salif_keita_feso_afropop_1989/|
|permalink|http://reddit.com/r/listentothis/comments/1j8udv/salif_keita_feso_afropop_1989/|
|metrics|lastfm listeners: 136,398, lastfm plays: 1,064,925, youtube plays: 102,880, radd.it score: 6|


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Ok, I'm back. This shit right here is amazing. Heard about it on All Things Considered today, and raced home to listen to it.

When Ali and Foreman did the big "Rumble In The Jungle" in Zaire (now Congo) in '74, there was a coinciding music festival with a few American bands, including James Brown, but more importantly with several African groups. The event was planned with the hope of spreading African music to the world.

These tapes sound fantastic. Excellent multi-track goodness. And SO GODDAMN FUNKY.

Well the background for why he did that is pretty brutal. The Nigerian government went into his house/nation/home and shot up the place, as well as threw his mother from a second balcony window. It's all well documented in Music is the Weapon, which is a fantastic watch if you're ever looking to learn more about Fela Kuti or see what 70's/80's Lagos/Nigeria is like.

Then again, if you declare yourself a sovereign nation and don't pay taxes to the nation surrounding you, I'm not surprised the military is sent in.

I've been a salsa dancer for 8 years. 4 years of that as a promoter in Chicago. I've travelled around the country, met pro dancers, bands, musicians and hosted events. Eventually met my Uber hot Puerto Rican/Mexican wife, quit the scene and took up DJing house music. Below are links to CDs on Amazon. This is good stuff. There is one rule to being a good salsa DJ: Thou Shall Not Mix Salsa. Play the song all the way thru. These will get you going in the right direction.

http://www.amazon.com/New-York-City-Salsa/dp/B008H7PCF6/ref=sr_1_3?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1381886475&sr=1-3&keywords=salsa+fania

http://www.amazon.com/Fania-Signature-Vol-Hot-Salsa/dp/B0083L40EK/ref=sr_1_4?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890215&sr=1-4&keywords=salsa+fania

http://www.amazon.com/Que-Viva-La-Salsa/dp/B007X2QDHW/ref=sr_1_27?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890274&sr=1-27&keywords=salsa+fania

http://www.amazon.com/Cuba-Putumayo-Presents/dp/B00000IWNK/ref=sr_1_23?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890414&sr=1-23&keywords=putumayo

http://www.amazon.com/Putumayo-Presents-Latin-Jazz-Various/dp/B000P6R8F4/ref=sr_1_36?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890443&sr=1-36&keywords=putumayo

http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Latin-Party-Putumayo-Presents/dp/B0007LPMCS/ref=sr_1_42?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890949&sr=1-42&keywords=putumayo

http://www.amazon.com/Que-Pasa-Best-Fania-Stars/dp/B0012GN468/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381890979&sr=1-1&keywords=fania+allstars

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Salsa-Ever-Vol-1/dp/B000FGG6K2/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381891047&sr=1-7&keywords=hector+lavoe+greatest+hits

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Salsa-Ever-2/dp/B000HEZBX0/ref=pd_sim_m_1

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Salsa-Ever-3/dp/B000QUCQH4/ref=pd_sim_m_2

As far as I know, this song was first released on the album African Marketplace, which was originally released in 1980. Happy listening! :)

Checked out Nicola. fantastic stuff. you may like to give this a spin on a good sound system http://www.amazon.com/Ali-Toumani-Farka-Toure/dp/B0030U1U6U . purely instrumental, but mastered well

Also available from Rough Trade - limited to 500 blue (if color matters to you): https://www.roughtrade.com/us/yusef-lateef/eastern-sounds-rudy-van-gelder-remasters/lp-plus?channable=a18786.MTg2MDky&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwb3rBRDrARIsALR3Xead8-QRS17kAxMfcrEc_DAal9VfHRW7bInQqedG4i1BHCYA78Cr_boaAkpaEALw_wcB

The 2011 OJC pressing supposedly sounds great and is available at Amazon for $21.98: https://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Sounds-Vinyl-Yusef-Lateef/dp/B0000296W2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2UBCPC7KSQWYF&keywords=yusef+lateef+eastern+sounds&qid=1567607979&s=gateway&sprefix=lateef+eas%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-2

When I have time to stop and enjoy my tea, I'll often listen to Hong Ting and sometimes Tinariwen
Both have a general mellow tone, but still maintain some liveliness.

I think it is preaching to the choir here, but this documentary ( made by white people, go figure ) is essential viewing....

http://www.amazon.com/Fela-Kuti-Music-Weapon-Anikulapo/dp/B000079DF9/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1453904601&sr=1-2&keywords=Fela+Anikulapo+Kuti

Mulatu Astatqe's Ethiopes 4 and Charles Mingus' Blues & Roots! In the mood for funk? Miles Davis' Star People

The Tel Aviv Session.
I found out about it on NPR music and bought it about a year ago from their website.