If there’s a better festival city in North America than Montreal, I don’t know what it is. As you can read in Ron Deutsch’s roundup of the recent Festival International de Jazz, this city spares no effort to create a huge, largely free, urban festival experience. This was the case again this July for the 38th edition of Festival International Nuits D’Afrique.
Sean Barlow and I spent six, music-packed days in Montreal, documenting the “outdoor portion” of this 12-day event. We recorded 18 music acts, interviewed many of the artists, and forged promising new connections. For us, the best part of this festival is discovery! We know Bombino and BCUC, but most of these other artists were new to us, certainly new for us to see live on stage and meet.
Much of this material will be featured on upcoming Planet Afropop podcast episodes as well as online interviews, videos and more. To start, I offer a visual tour of highlights from our Nuits D’Afrique adventure. This was a major content haul, and it will take some time to unpack it all for you. But here’s a start…
All photos by Banning Eyre
This guitarist/singer/bandleader from Burkina Faso is a dynamo on stage. His guitar playing and style on stage put me in mind of my Malian mentor, the great Djelimady Tounkara of the Super Rail Band.
The guitarist/singer from Niger needs no introduction by now. He showed a special feeling for Montreal, inviting his former band member and protégé Boubé (more on him later) to join him for his electrifying closing set on the outdoor fest’s opening night.
Afro-Iraqi jazz from Toronto? That should have tweaked me that this was the same artist we recently featured on Planet Afropop for his sensational album, Kanzafula, Afro-Iraqi Sufi Music. Halfway through the first song, I realized that this was the same man, albeit with a slightly different group. The performance was similarly riveting. Moneka had to leave right after the show, but we’ll be arranging an interview soon.
This trio fuses Gnawa tradition with sub-Saharan elements in a bracing, mesmerizing stew of sound. The fusion works, and the ensemble delivers a super high-energy show on stage. Stunning musicianship!
If you haven’t seen or heard this activist, underground group from Soweto, combining Zulu, Sotho and Xhosa lyrics—both sung and chanted—along with strains of punk, hip-hop, rap and an overall garage-band approach, you owe yourself the experience. There is nothing like it!
The number and quality of West African griot musicians in Montreal is very impressive, and high in that pantheon are these kora and sabar-playing brothers from Senegal.
Every year, Afropop Worldwide reviews the nine semi-finalists in the Syli D’Or battle of the Afropop bands that goes down at Club Balattou in February. We then award one of them the Afropop Prize. This year, we had a tie so gave two awards, the first to this pan-Latin American ensemble. They start with cumbia, and make their way with ease and confidence through a beguiling array of related and neighboring styles from the region.
This Algerian singer from the Kabyle brought out Montreal’s Amazight community in force, singing along, dancing, and waving the Amazight flag. Numidz and his ensemble gave them what they came for. One of the great charms of this festival is the way different artist draw forth passionate elements of the city’s richly diverse population.
We had heard of this dynamic singer from Cameroon, and knew of her association with that country’s high-boogie bikutsi music, a genre that almost no act on the international scene performs. But we were unprepared for the barrage of rhythm and melody this trio kicked out. And Valerie is a dynamo on stage. Again, she had to leave after the show, but rest assured we’ll be speaking with her soon.
What would you imagine is the connection between the music of Isle de la Réunion, the Gnawa of Morocco and percussion from Burkina Faso? One answer is a penchant for lively 6/8 (12/4) rhythms. But that’s just the beginning of what this excellent ensemble from Toulouse puts out.
A few years ago at the WOMEX conference, we picked up and loved the debut CD from this multi-ethnic band from Benin. Now as they prepare to release their second one, we meet in Montreal, and man, did they deliver, a rocking, pan-genre take on Benin roots sounds.
Multi-instrumentalist Baba MD is another shining example of Montreal’s deep bench of fine Mande musicians. He and guitarist Aboulaye Koné (see above) are pure magic together!
Freddy grew up in Congo-Brazzaville in the time of Les Bantous de la Capitale. But as a singer, he was always looking beyond local styles in search of an international sound. He went on to play percussion and sing with Les Tambours de Brazza. These days, he’s pursuing his dream and this show presented a fascinating twist on classic Congolese music.
Montreal Afro-futurist musician Afrotronix has been working with this vocal and percussion women’s group, giving motherly (auntiely?) advice and council to women. Afrotronix helped produce a cool, techy video, but the charm of this show—which happened during one of the festival’s few rain downpours—was the acoustic vocals and dance interactions among these fabulous women. The crowd response was overwhelming!
This young guitarist/singer/songwriter from Niger has been in Montreal just over two years, and he’s put together a strong band that spans both the meditative acoustic side and the hard-driving electric side of desert blues. Along with Less Toches, Boubé was the proud recipient of this year’s Afropop Syli D’Or prize.
We passed up much of the final outdoor show (Haitian star Rutshelle Guiallaume was the festival closer and rocked a huge Haitian crowd) to hit Ballatou for a set by Sierra Leonne/Guinea singer/songwriter Sia Tolno. Sia’s sound is based in Afrobeat but veers off in various intriguing directions. She has a new album on the way, and Planet Afropop is particularly interested in her work with the Barcelona’s Afro-Dead, a band that interprets Grateful Dead songs in Afrobeat style. Stay tuned to our podcast for more on that!
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