When the (bon)fire is low...

So, remember that Shakira song "Waka Waka?" The one that they played all the time at the World Cup? Well, she recorded it with a group from South Africa called Freshlyground, and it turns out they are awesome!

Look at all those beautiful people of all shades

Here is a GOOD (SUMMER) SONG of theirs: Fire Is Low by Freshlyground

The members of Freshlyground hail from South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and are assorted ethnicities, and their diverse cultures and backgrounds make for some really cool music. They formed in 2002 in Cape Town. They released their first album, Jika Jika, in 2003, then followed it with another in  2004 and another in 2007. Fire Is Low comes from their most recent album, Radio Africa, from last year (2010). They are Afro-pop with a bit of jazz. Or maybe Indie with a bit of jazzy pop. Or maybe African with an indie-pop twist. However you describe their sound, they are a lot of fun. The lead singer, Solani Mahola, has a really beautiful, jazzy, smooth voice that is extremely smile-inducing. The other band members include Simon Atwell, Peter Cohen, Kyla Rose Smith, Julio "Gugs" Sigauque, Josh Hawks, and Seredeal "Shaggy" Scheepers. All those band mates means lots of instruments: flute, mbira, harmonica, drums, sax, violin, guitar, bass, keyboard, etc., etc. How can you not love it??

This song makes me want to dance around on a summer night when the bonfire gets low. It's impossible not to groove to that beat! Listen! The sax! The clapping!
I hope you enjoy this song, because I sure do.

If you did, indeed, like this song, you might also check out:
Paul Simon
Manu Chao
Arno Carstens
Belleruche
Laura Izibor

Over and out,
Anna

P.S. If you are in DC and free (I'm not. Oh well.) on July 2nd, you should totally go see their show at Black Cat!

Birthday Post: Rolling Stones & Stone Rollin'

So, today is my birthday! Huzzah!

In honor of this festive occasion, I am posting a bunch of GOOD SONGS songs that I just can't get enough of. They are also GOOD SUMMER SONGS!

This is what real rocking out looks like. Look closely.
You may be tested on this later, kids.

The first GOOD SONG is Loving Cup by the Rolling Stones, off their album Exile On Main Street.
If you aren't a fan of the Rolling Stones, then I just don't know what to tell you.  I have to admit, in the Beatles vs. Stones argument, I always go with the Stones.
Exile On Main Street is a CLASSIC album, and is interesting in that when it was first released, it got really bad reviews by many people. But now people have come to appreciate it much more. Fun fact: the U2 album Achtung Baby (my favorite album of theirs, I think) was almost called Cruise Down Main Street, in homage to the Stones.
Loving Cup is a fantastic song for many reasons. That intro piano reminds me a bit of the Charlie Brown theme song. But it goes on and the drums come in and it gets so rockin. This song is a perfect taste of the album as a whole.
The song struck me as funny the first time I heard it, since the refrain is "Gimme a little drink from your loving cup/Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk," since in my family, if you wanted to share a drink with someone, you would ask if the other person wanted to share a loving cup with you. Apparently a loving cup is a ceremonial cup that used to be used at marriages and things like that, where everyone took a sip. I don't think that is what the Rolling Stones are talking about, but then again, maybe I'm wrong.

Also clearly a bad-ass onstage. Take notes.

Speaking of rolling stones, the next GOOD SONG is Go To Hell by Raphael Saadiq, from his new album called Stone Rollin'.
You can definitely hear the Rolling Stones influence in his music, which, although is classified as "neo-soul," has some real rock n' roll flavor to it. I love the song Go To Hell because it rises to a fantastic crescendo with that choir in the background and the cymbals and the string section (kinda like You Can't Always Get What You Want, although less over the top). I love the chorus: Let Love bring us together! Let Love bring us together!
The other truly GOOD SONG off the same album is the title track Stone Rollin' (be aware that the video is pretty sexual). The harmonica in the beginning reminds me of the song Midnight Rambler by the Rolling Stones (most certainly a GOOD SONG). Definitely listen to them both. Hear the influence?
Raphael Saadiq is an interesting cat. He was born Charlie Ray Wiggins in Oakland, CA in 1966, and was part of the R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!. He has collaborated with TLC, John Legend, Earth Wind & Fire, A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, and many, many more. Not surprisingly, he performed with Mick Jagger at the Grammy Awards show this year.
Stone Rollin' is his fourth solo album, and was only released May 10th. I think it's worth checking out.

If you liked these songs, you might also like:

Aloe Blacc (see this post)
Eli Paperboy Reed (see this post)
John Legend
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (see this post)
D'Angelo
Artists similar to the Rolling Stones? I don't even know where to start. You've probably heard them all. As for current artists who were influenced by them, the list is, again, way too long. Do your own research.

Over and out,
Anna

Summer Time and the Livin' Is Easy...

WHOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!

I had my last day of school on Friday! Students don't realize how much teachers look forward to the summer. Definitely more than the kids do. For real.
So, in honor of my first week of summer, I thought I'd start posting fun summer songs. How's that?
This first post on Manu Chao may not be big news for those of you who are close to me and have had mixes made by me. I am a bit obsessed with Manu Chao, and I play him all the time. But for those of you who are not well-acquainted with him, or who have forgotten about his awesomeness, read on!

Manu looking appropriately beachy. 

GOOD SONG: La vie á 2 by Manu Chao, from his album Clandestino (1998)
I have heard this entire album by Manu Chao approximately 300 million times. My sister used to play it *all* the time when we shared a room, and I have memories of going to sleep to it and waking up to it later in the night when she had gone to bed, but had forgotten to turn off the lights and the music. Because of this I know ALL the lyrics to his song Bongo Bong, which is one of my favorite songs on earth. Also definitely worth a listen. But yeah, the album isn't exactly recent. But it is a classic in my book. Manu Chao is a freaking genius. He sings in French, English, Spanish, Arabic, Portugese, Italian, Galician, Wolof, and I think more. He is super-popular in Europe, but hasn't made it quite as big here in the States. His popularity is growing, though. His music has about a million different influences in it, so it is hard to describe. It's a hell of a lot of fun, though. Manu Chao & his band Radio Bemba have released three albums to date: Clandestino, Proxima Estación: Esperanza (2001), and his most recent one La Radiolina (2007).

Buy his music here: Manu Chao!

If you like this song, you might also check out:

Mano Negra (an earlier band of his)
Orishas
Gogol Bordello
Beirut
The Skatalites

More fun summer music of all types and tastes coming along soon! Keep your ears open!

Over and out,
Anna

(Belated) International Month Post #3: Lebanon + Egypt

OK, sorry guys. I know May is over and so technically, International Month should be over too. But you know what?

I was busy.

And it's my blog and I can do what I want.

So this post gets to be included in International Month's posts, since I *meant* to post it ages ago.

Next up? Got some great music goin on, from Lebanon and Egypt, two Arabic-music-producing powerhouses. 

The madonna link isn't so hard to see, I don't think...

First we have Y.A.S., this awesome electropop duo from Lebanon, made up of Yasmin Hamdan and Mirwais Ahmadzaï. Mirwais produced albums for Madonna, so he's got some pretty serious cred going on. Yasmin used to be part of Soap Kills, a Lebanese group that sang in Arabic  as opposed to English or French, and spurred many others to do the same. So she's also got some cred. 

GOOD SONG #1:  Get It Right, off their album "Arabology"

The song is really cool. It actually mixes English and Arabic. It's set in Egypt even though Y.A.S. is Lebanese, like I said. 

GOOD SONG #2 of theirs is Mahi, which you can listen to off their myspace. I love her voice on it, singing entirely in Arabic. It's got a nice groove to it. It's still electronica I guess, but not as Madonna-esque as Get It Right.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and say I think
she looks much classier than Yasmin.

Also from Lebanon, but in a totally other genre, we have Fairouz, who is arguably the most famous of all Lebanese singers. She is known as Fairouz (which means "turquoise" in Arabic, apparently) but her real name is Nouhad Wadi Haddad, and was born in Lebanon in 1935. She's a Christian (Catholic by birth, Greek Orthodox after her marriage) and is hugely popular in Lebanon and Syria. She started her singing career in the early '50's after attending a music conservatory and marrying into the Rahbani family, who worked at a radio station. She is still out and about performing at concerts around the world. Go her!

GOOD SONG #3: Beirut Hal Zarafat

Her voice is incredible-- with that sort of deep female huskiness to it that seems to be pretty common in Middle Eastern music. This recording is a live version, and is amazing. I wish I could understand what she was saying. Whatever it is, it sounds beautiful and moving. I think it's sort of an ode to the city of Beirut.

(BUY HER MUSIC HERE: Fairouz) 

On to Egypt!

So now I'm sharing with you a singer who, if you know anything about Egyptian/Middle Eastern/Mediterranean music (which I didn't until my boyfriend made me a few mixes), you will recognize. If you already are super-knowledgeable about all this, then you'll just have to forgive me for this post. Amr Diab is one of the most famous recording artists in Egypt now. He is credited with creating "Mediterranean music" which is a pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, blend of Egyptian music and Western rhythms and influences. He was born in Egypt in 1961, and is now the top selling artist in the Arab world. Not too shabby, Amr. 

I'm guessing about 10,000 Egyptian girls have this picture
posted to their wall.

GOOD SONG #4: Amarain

So this is the first Amr Diab song I heard (thanks to that previously mentioned mix). And I became obsessed with it. It's got a great slightly Spanish feel to it, plus some nice violin, and the lyrics in Arabic and Diab's distinctly Middle Eastern vocal style. So cool! His videos tend to just be lots of beautiful women making sexy faces at the camera and dancing like wild things around him. Although some babies are thrown into the mix, here, too. which is odd. Why the babies, Amr? It is pretty entertaining though, anyway. And the song is amazing. If this song doesn't make you want to dance, then I think you're dead.

GOOD SONG #5: Lealy Nahary

Just thought I'd throw this one into the mix, too. I find the cadence of the vocals interesting (I don't really know how else to describe it), and the hand-clappy sort of beat is lots of fun to dance to alone in your room. Or with others. Whatever you prefer. 

If you liked these songs, you might also check out:

Soap Kills

Nancy Ajram

Shereen

Alabina

Tamer Hosny

Elissa

Over and out,

Anna