The eMusic Dozen: Afropop

Music is the Weapon sums up 20-plus years of over-the-top output from the creator of Afrobeat, one of Afropop's most durable subgenres. Tuneful classics like "Lady" and "Shakara," the brassy powerhouse "Roforofo Fight" and "Zombie," Fela's landmark rant against the soldiers who raided his compound in 1978, capture his band's '70s pinnacle. To hear Fela spit scorn on those soldiers both raises a smile and inspires deep respect, for Nigeria's leaders exacted a heavy price on the bandleader in beatings, raids and jailings. A few mammoth songs, like "Coffin for Head of State," are edited down from their original versions, some up to 30 minutes long. But the evolution of the band's sound comes through in all its glorious excess, from the long, slow-build intros to Fela's pidgin-English proto-raps to blaring, wall-of-horns passages and meandering Afro-jazz solos.

This 1999 album captures one of Africa's most important, innovative, and prolific bandleaders at a point of transition. Having inspired his country's '70s freedom fighters with his politically laced, guitar-powered reworkings of local traditions, especially Shona religious music using the iron-pronged mbira, Mapfumo later became a critic of the resulting regime. Two songs here, "Disaster" and "Mamvemne (Tatters)," were banned from state radio. By this time, the band is a veritable folk orchestra with three mbiras, two guitars, brass section, keyboard, bass, drums, percussion and vocals. Songs range in style from the breathless romp of "Kuenda Mbire," to the righteous swell of "Nhamo Zvakare," the roots trance of "Zvichapera," the quasi-rasta chant of "Musanyepe" and best of all "Chisi," perhaps the best mbira pop track ever, and a superb run for the late lead guitarist Joshua Dube.

The folklore of Madagascar is soothingly tuneful, but peppered with tricky, lightning-fast rhythms. On this charmed set, the Indian Ocean island's most internationally successful roots pop group reworks local radio hits from the '70s and '80s and adds a few tunes of their own. D stands for Dihy, or "dance." But if you plan to dance to the likes of "Mihetsika" (a racing tsapika from the south of the island) or "Samy Mandeha Samy Mitady" (a salegy hit for northern supergroup Jaojoby), you need to be comfortable in 12/8 time, the island nation's signature beat. Tarika render crisp, dance-oriented pop grooves using the gentle sounds of acoustic guitars, plucked harps, especially the tube-shaped valiha, as well as other box zithers and other local string oddities. Sisters Hanitra and Noro lead richly harmonized vocals, breezy and sweet on upbeat numbers like "Restany," and lulling on the occasional ballad, like "Ilahikolo."

Ironically, after apartheid crumbled in South Africa, an influx of foreign music temporarily derailed creativity as imitative genres rose to displace distinctly local ones. This 2000 release updates the Zulu guitar pop style called maskanda -- tough and punchy to start with -- with the urban authenticity of house, while West African kora and an appearance by Congolese vocalist Lokua Kanza lend a pan-African sheen. Mhlongo is a versatile singer who can croon, wail or cackle as the situation requires; her command of roots music is the bedrock of her charm, but in creating fierce, multi-layered fusions like the breathless "Ukulutha" ("Live in Peace"), she also shows confident worldliness. On "Ngadlalwa Yindoda" ("He's Toying With Me") she morphs between R&B diva and scratchy-voiced village mystic, amid references to Congolese guitar pop and old South African jazz. This is one of the best South African records of the post-apartheid era so far.

This 1991 session captures one of central/east Africa's great dance bands at a moment of strength. Leader Samba Mapangala has one of the sweetest voices in African pop; his vocals on these beautifully produced tracks are mostly in Swahili -- the language of the East African coast -- but the seductive melodies, clean electric guitar interplay, pumping dance rhythms, and peripatetic arrangements here all smack of the best Congo music. Virunga defies conventions. While soukous bands were dumping brass in favor of keyboards, Virunga featured lush, sunny brass arrangements worthy of Afropop's '70s golden age. The band also takes on rootsy 12/8 grooves, as on "Vidonge (Medicine)," alongside the more familiar "rumba" variants, with their echoes of Latin music. Songs build on strong hooks and showcase vocal performances, and invariably end in transcendent dance jams interweaving brass, percussion and guitar. Pure joy, delivered with rare style and class.

This is the best of all the reissues from the original, 1971-73 formation of Mali's highly influential Rail Band, which featured future superstars Mory Kante and Salif Keita. Guitar maestro Djelimady Tounkara had recently joined, and Kante, having replaced Keita, was coming into his own as a lead singer. "Walenumalombaliya" builds around Tounkara's crisp, tuneful riffing, full of the sweetness of Mande music and the piquant tang of jazz-rock. "Mamadou Bitiqui" floats ethereally between 4/4 and 6/8 time, and Kante's vocal sears. The set is stylistically varied, moving well beyond the band's traditional base in Mande music. "Jirikan" is a brooding, pentatonic 12/8 piece; "Mariba Yassa" nods to James Brown's "Sex Machine" even as it adapts a melody from Wassoulou music. There are echoes of Congolese music, and even the Nigerian Afrobeat sound, with Kante blending griot gut cry with soul wailing, and even rapping a little, and Djelimady stretching out with the wah-wah pedal.

Beginning in 2001, these Congolese veterans triggered a move away from the bloated, high-tech conventions of Congo music, back to its Latin and acoustic roots. On their second album, Kekele hit stride not so much with retro authenticity as with reimagined originality -- rumba as it might have been. Each soaring voice, snap and sizzle of percussion, and gleaming acoustic guitar note (mostly from the great Syran Mbenza) sounds vivid and in perfect balance. Four vocalists -- Wuta-Mayi, Nyboma, Bumba Massa, and Loko Massengo -- trade leads throughout, and join in brilliant choral backing. Tasty accordion spicing from Regis Gizavo of Madagascar, and an all-clarinet horn section make for a unique soundscape. "Issake Shango" showcases Nyboma's soaring tenor and Syran's brisk acoustic guitar. There is one 6/8 number, "Oyebi Bien," but the rest is rumba of the '60s Kinshasa variety, with Cuban flavoring: violin charanga on "Bebe Yaourt," and son on "Affaire Mokuwa."

The Tuareg nomads of the Sahara have found a wide audience for their music, often heard as "African blues." Malian band Tinariwen popularized a style based on noodling electric guitar and deep, elemental melodies and grooves. The 2006 debut of this band of Tuareg and Woodabe musicians from Niger gave Tinariwen stiff competition. There are guitars, but the focus is bass, mesmerizing chants and poetry and the tight rhythmic foundation of the azakalabo (water-flooding calabash) and the akayaure (metal rings on a metal plate, worn on legs). The entire band sings, mostly call-and-response. As with the Moroccan Gnawa, the music deals with healing: "Ronde" resembles the Gnawa all-night lila ceremony; the hypnotic "Maleele" celebrates a girl whose dancing calls up healing spirits. Most trance-inducing of all, "Heeme" honors camel races, with grunt-like vocalizations. Without pretense, the so-called "stars of tradition" achieve a strikingly hip and contemporary result.