Amazon.co.uk Review
If you want to take a painless crash-course in African music, and at the same time do something for charity,
Oxfam Africa--with its enhanced addendum on what Oxfam does--should be the ideal CD for you. Its music is expertly chosen, combining the obvious with the relatively recherché. Youssou N'Dour is here (mercifully in his 1980s guise), as is the seductive music of Sona Diabate and the veteran Mozambican group Eyuphuro. For a touch of top-class jazz we get Abdullah Ibrahim in expansively dreamy mood and from Cape Verde--that extraordinary musical outcrop in the Atlantic--comes the irresistible Tito Paris, with his Portuguese textures and rhythms. Reggae-king Lucky Dube is here with his crusading "Prisoner", as is that fascinating Malagasy group Tarika, flourishing their new-found Indonesian roots. The most unexpected tracks come from the Maghreb: Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects, from Morocco (trance-ambience-house), and from Algeria, rai king Messaoud Bellemou. If you're new to the music of Africa, this CD, with its intelligent notes, will send you off in a dozen new directions.
--Michael Church
fRoots, October 2001
This album isn't specifically composed and performed for Oxfam, but a judicious sampler of African music put together by the people who bring you the Rough Guide CDs. Youssou N'Dour opens the proceedings with the well-known Xarit. Other less obvious choices follow, including a great blaring track by the founding father of Algerian rai, trumpeter Bellemou Messaoud, and a trance-like beauty from Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects. Well-known figures too: Koffi Olomide, Tarika, Lucky Dube and Abdullah Ibrahim also contribute to an excellent introduction and survey.
-- Rick Sanders © fRoots Magazine all rights reserved
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