From the South African musical style mbube, Ladysmith Black Mambazo popularized a more modern, sophisticated offshoot known as iscathamiya. They quickly became the genre's leading practitioners, with a vocal harmony blend that incorporated everything…

Born in Benin, West Africa, Angelique Kidjo spices her funky, vocal-driven dance music with rhythmic and percussive details of her homeland. The distinctly African drumbeats on most of her albums, as well as the richness of her voice and the rhythm o…

Originally from southern France with family roots in the flamenco tradition, the Gipsy Kings achieved enormous mainstream success in the late 1980s with their flamenco-pop. Details like infectious, rhythmic hand-clapping, rich vocals, and precise gui…

CCS - Collective Consciousness Society - was an unlikely collaboration between blues traditionalist Alexis Korner (b. 19 April 1928, Paris, France. d. January 1984; vocals, guitar), producer Mickie Most and arranger John Cameron. Formed in 1970, the …

Since collaborating with Peter Gabriel in the 1980s, Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour has become familiar to audiences around the world. With his complex, topical music, N'Dour is the primary exponent of the mbalax sound, which combines traditional W…

This Chicago, Illinois R&B vocal group achieved fame with one of the great jump tracks of the early rock 'n' roll era, "At My Front Door", also called "Crazy Little Mama". Members on that hit were Pirkle Lee Moses (lead), Louis Bradley (second tenor)…

Cuba's most well-loved masters of the traditional "son" style gathered to make the one-of-a-kind BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB album in 1996. A tribute to these aging but masterful veterans of the Cuban musical form, it was produced and organized by Ry Coo…

South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela got his start as a teenager in the 1950s, playing in local bands. After years of increasing success, he joined Jazz Epistle Verse 1--the first South African jazz band to make a full-length recording. In 1961…

Formed in the early 1990s by Marie Daulne, who was born in Zaire and raised in Europe, Zap Mama is a (mostly) a cappella group of female singers whose voices blend Christian choral music, Afropop, Pygmy vocalizations, and vocal percussion, and have i…

Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the controversial and unapologetically political creator of Afro-beat. With his charismatic presence, he presided over a teeming collective of musicians, which frequently made him a target of the authorities in his native Nige…

The home to Mark Moore (b. 12 January 1966, London, England), who was arguably the best UK interpreter of the late 80s Italo-house phenomenon. Moore is half-Korean, though his early claims that he had a twin brother in that nation's army were spuriou…

One of the most popular and important performers of the Nigerian musical style known as Juju--a fluid, highly rhythmic music that used traditional African percussion to create a dense, multi-layered sound--King Sunny Ade brought new stylistic concept…

b. 16 June 1962, Lagos, Nigeria. Son of the legendary Nigerian Afro-Beat pioneer, Fela Kuti, Femi is a worthy successor to his father and has added a new dimension to the polyrhythmic sound in which his father specialised. Femi has added the exuberan…

b. Khaled Hadj Brahim, 29 February 1960, Sidi-El-Houari, Oran, Algeria. Singing and playing accordion from an early age, Khaled dropped out of school to pursue a musical career in spite of the disapproval of his father (a policeman). From 1976 he rel…

Part of the Philadelphia sound of the mid-70s, this female vocal group's biggest success was "Armed And Extremely Dangerous". Rochelle Fleming (b. 11 February 1950, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Joyce Jones (b. 30 July 1949) and Annette Guest (b.…

Best known in the West for his successful collaborations with Ry Cooder, the Malian performer Ali Farka Toure brought out the African side of American blues music, even as he displayed the influence of players like John Lee Hooker on his own bluesy g…

Pakistan-born Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most revered and prolific Qawwali singer in recording history, took an obscure religious musical form and, with the help of some sympathetic collaborators and promoters, made it commercially and artistically …

As the daughter of Joao Gilberto, one of the chief architects of the bossa nova sound, and the step-daughter of singer Astrud Gilberto, perhaps the genre's most recognizable voice, Bebel Gilberto is at the fore of the second generation of bossa nova …

b. 12 November 1953, Podor, Senegal. Vocalist and guitarist Maal had humble origins, growing up in the sparsely populated town of Podor, where his father worked in the fields, but also had the honour of calling worshippers to the mosque using song. T…

This short-lived act was one of several US acts formed by pop svengali Kim Fowley (b. 27 July 1942, Los Angeles, California, USA) as an outlet for his production/songwriting talents at Rendezvous Records. Their 1961 release, "Bumble Boogie" (featurin…