Afriki

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (52 ratings)
Afriki album cover
Album Information

Total Tracks: 11   Total Length: 46:12

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Timeless Classic

teapot1

This has it all - beautiful singing and background vocals, lovely, clear acoustic sounds, great songs and arrangments talented musicians. Download now!

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Beautiful

MoFoNgo

A beautiful record. Habib's songwriting and guitar playing are unmatched.

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Incredible

turtlelooni

Every single song on this CD is superb. Habib's voice is lush and beautifully textured and his guitar playing just carries me away. Every composition is a joy. Thank you.

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West African superstar

kiwimagic108

When you listen to Habib Koite you are struck by the power of music to uplift and to heal.I highly recommend this great musician from Mali.

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Full of warmth and humanity

Aeolian

I feel lucky. This has a gentle yearning feel to it and is interesting to my ear. Talent all around. Try Barra for a great rhythmic sway.

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They Say All Music Guide

In the six years since Mali’s Habib Koite released his last new studio album, he developed a reputation in the West as one of his country’s greatest cultural exports. On Afriki, Koite has fine-tuned his carefully manicured approach to melodic, acoustic-based songs of deep personal and global meaning. Always an engaging singer and songwriter, Koite’s guitar is on equal footing here; his playing and the overall musicianship of his band, Bamada, outshines anything they offered in their previous outings. Koite exhibits a newfound sensitivity in his playing, always intricate, evocative, rhythmic and moving. Some of the instrumental work is reminiscent of the folk guitar styles of the ’60s, but on tracks like the exquisite “N’Teri,” a simple song of thanks, Koite brings in lush orchestration and background vocalists, as well as an array of native African instruments such as the balofon and n’goni. Other tracks, among them the album-opening “Namania” and “Africa” (with horns arranged by James Brown veteran Pee Wee Ellis), a song calling for African self-reliance, apply Koite’s guitar, soulful voice and the gap-filling backup singers to a more polyrhythmic setting. “Fimani” reunites Mali with the blues it spawned, while the closing “Titati” is a solo showcase for Koite’s lone (but never lonesome) guitar. Some may say that the key to Koite’s escalating popularity lies in an eagerness to look outside of Mali for ideas to incorporate with his own; that may be so, but that’s not such a bad thing at all if the result is an uplifting, empowering world music that truly does bring together so much of the world, in such a warm and enchanting way. – Jeff Tamarkin

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