The First 2017 Case of the Night at Club Safari

It's time to get happy again with the irrepressible sounds of Afro-Latin. Two hours today of latin jams from the West African scene of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, featuring music from The Congo, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, and Burkina Faso.

We start today's set as I usually start these Club Safari episodes... with a dose of folk roots music, mostly from The Congo. Although not the earliest recordings on today's show, this type of music represents one of the earliest syntheses of indigenous tribal music with modern Western sounds such as calypso and merengue.

I fill the rest of today's first hour with classic rumba sounds from The Congo. As my frequent listeners know, The Congo was one of the few places in Africa where local popular music was recorded and sold for local markets. Congolese rumba represents one of the earliest successful strains of popular music in Africa that moved beyond rote regurgitations of popular Western styles such as jazz or mambo.

The second hour today branches out into other countries. We start the second hour with a sampling of 60s dancefloor sounds from the island nation of Cape Verde; these are the roots of the sounds that would be popularized by Cesaria Evora 10-20 years later.

We end the show with a sampling of more straightforward latin covers from Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and The Congo.