Friday, April 8, 2011
Funky Friday, Globalize Yourself Edition
An "Acoustic Africa" concert is happening on campus this evening; African guitarists Habib Koité (in the video above), Oliver Mtukudzi and Afel Bocoum will no doubt have me tappin' my toes.
I think that from now on, we should require that all of our politicians be musicians as well. Then we would be reasonably assured that soulless bastards would be ineligible for office, and our representatives would already be acquainted with the concept of playing well with others.
But if they went on tour, I still probably wouldn't buy the T-shirt.
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I'd buy their T shirt if I could gag their dumb ass mouths with it but the reason they become politicians in the first place is because they can't do anything else. Half of 'em wouldn't even be able to compose a sentence without a four member speech writing staff.
ReplyDelete" Then we would be reasonably assured that soulless bastards would be ineligible for office, and our representatives would already be acquainted with the concept of playing well with others."
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a sage. My mind dances away to all the possible routes to ineligibility for office that could crop up during the garage band years.
There might be more legal imbibeable substances available, too. Not that I care about that...
ReplyDeleteThat should be "imbibable". Gosh, what was I smoking...?
ReplyDelete"Tuku" - as Oliver Mutukudzi is known back home - is one of the old school musicians from Zimbabwe, has been going since pre-Independence times, and is very strong in the struggle against the tyranny of Mugabe and his cohorts ... okay, I'll get off my soap box now. I have heard him play live at a place in Queen Street, Harare. Not the most salubrious of locations, but certainly one of the more interesting. Well worth going, if it's not over already.
ReplyDeleteBrett, the concert was amazing! What is even more amazing is that they included a stop in the North Carolina mountains on their tour. Now I'm curious to know more of the history of this music.
ReplyDeleteGlad that you got to hear it. Mutukudizi played quite a significant role in the revolutionary music of the pre-Independence era (<1980) as well as exploring several crossover (with Western) styles. The other two names sound West African to me, and I suspect that most of the African musicians one hears in North America are either from there or South Africa. Zimbabwean music tends to be somewhat different, I would have thought, but perhaps it's getting to be all one big melting pot now.
ReplyDeleteHe was in New Zealand a few years ago - I heard him interviewed on the radio - and because of the current situation in Zimbabwe, I suspect he spends much of his life touring outside Africa. North Carolina mountains - well a campus would be just the place I'd expect to see him.