The First Case of the Gems of Afro-Pop

The term Afro-Pop got a bad name in the 80s, when a wave of African bands found success in Europe and America playing watered-down synth pop. 

Today's show will proudly reclaim the banner of Afro-Pop with a selection of (mostly) pre-80s tracks from The Congo, Angola, and a few other West African nations.

Pride of place in today's show for tracks from the recently issued "Zaire 74" triple LP. This set finally releases concert recordings of African musicians from the extraordinary 3-day festival that preceded the famous Ali-Foreman heavyweight championship fight in Kinshasa ("The Rumble in the Jungle"). Many US acts performed as well, including The Spinners, B.B. King, and James Brown; these performances have been featured in the documentary films "Soul Power" and "When We Were Kings." Before now, however, there have been only glimpses of footage and recordings of the African artists.

This was almost certainly the biggest concert in the lives of all the African musicians... hosting the Ali-Foreman fight in 1974 was akin to hosting the Olympics. Never before had so much international media come to sub-Saharan Africa (and I am hard pressed to name any occasion since that time, with the one exception of news footage in South Africa at the end of the Apartheid era). The musicians rise to the occasion with sparkling, noble performances.

Most of the performers at this event were from The Congo (then known as Zaire). They included Tabu Ley Rochereau with Afrisa, along with Franco and his OK Jazz. I will play a few medleys from this 3-LP set on today's show. Just to balance out the exuberant tone of these performances, I will also feature a set of mournful slow jams, with plenty of sultry Afro-Latin from former Portuguese colonies Angola and Guinea Bissau.