Antecedents of the 'worldbeat' guitar sound

September 6, 2024 7:42 AM

(nothing but) flowers by the talking heads has a particular electric guitar style that shows up in other albums (Paul Simon's Graceland, for example) whose music gets described as "world beat" or 'world music' by wikipedia. (Vampire Weekend's debut album has this too, I guess? I realize these are not always identical, but I don't have a better aesthetic vocabulary for this). Who are the artists that were influencing these bands and developed that sound earlier? What e.g., Afro-pop artists from the 1980s should I listen to if I really like that sound?
posted by dismas to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Best answer: Definitely not an expert here, but I think you're looking for the Mahotella Queens and other mbaqanga music.
posted by praemunire at 7:57 AM on September 6 [4 favorites]

Best answer: There are stories of a legendary mixtape that inspired Paul Simon, and I think this is an attempt to partly recreate that tape, or something like that… it has a track list.
posted by chr1sb0y at 8:14 AM on September 6 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Indestructible Beat of Soweto
posted by caek at 8:42 AM on September 6 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Mbaqanga is the south african genre that Paul Simon used. For the Vampire Weekend-y sound, I’d check out congolese soukous.

An artist with these kinds of guitars sounds drawing from local instruments is Franco and Ok Jazz. Many of his tunes start out slower and build into that clean, trebly polyphonic weave. And Tabu Lay is great too.

Also, many of Thomas Mapfumo’s electrified mbira-inspired chimurenga music might scratch the itch.

Also, there are lots of other artists that have been influenced by that sound, like Stromae from Belgium (with a Rwandan dad), Siba from Brazil (the trebly part starts 0:55 in), and Extra Golden, a band made up of half kenyan members and half the US indie rock bnd Golden.
posted by umbú at 8:57 AM on September 6 [7 favorites]

Best answer: King Sunny Ade was probably a big influence. Here’s some!
posted by wemayfreeze at 8:59 AM on September 6 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Johnny Marr plays the guitar on that track, so ... The Smiths? He claims the "world beat" sound was accidental:

"When I got there they put down some bass and drum tracks. '(Nothing But) Flowers' sounded almost like a reggae dub track. I wasn't trying to play in an African style - although some people pointed out that I sometimes sound like that anyway! I knew all about King Sunny Ade (performer of Nigerian juju music) and I love Fela Kuti (Nigerian multi-instrumentalist) but really I just played melodies that sounded good in a high range."
posted by credulous at 9:09 AM on September 6 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Soweto Never Sleeps is my personal favorite. The Mahotella Queens are heavily represented
posted by pullayup at 10:43 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Also check out Mokoomba.
posted by credulous at 11:34 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Damn, lots of good answers here to check out.

Hmm, the influence on specifically the guitars might be called into question (the further back you go with the genre, the fewer guitars you get, but when electric guitars are in the mix, they are very much in the same zone) but older entries in the Ghanan 'Highlife' genre (which really spread through many countries in Africa) is where some of that DNA might be coming from. Similar guitar action on this comp. Even into the 70s, you get examples like this.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:01 PM on September 6 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I am slain. What a treasure trove! Thank you for asking this question, dismas, and thank you to everyone who is answering.

While it’s not an exact match for the guitar style, my brain went immediately to Docteur Nico, whose Pauline somehow fell into my life years ago and made it sweeter.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 1:05 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Here are some other African artists from that time period definitely worth checking out.

Baaba Maal
Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey
Orchestra Baobab
Bembeya Jazz
Rail Band
youssou n’dour
super biton band

And the kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate
posted by umbú at 4:14 PM on September 6 [2 favorites]

Mod note: [Wonderful question and answers! We've added it to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:44 AM on September 7

Response by poster: Oh this is wonderful. Thank you all for all of these recommendations.
posted by dismas at 9:35 AM on September 8

Best answer: stories of a legendary mixtape that inspired Paul Simon ... I had a copy of that mix tape, which was compiled by Roger Steffens of KCRW radio at the time. It had some Sotho Famo accordion music and some Zulu Maskanda as well as the better known Mbaqanga of the Mahotella Queens, but it also had a lot of the acoustic Zulu music of Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu before they had formed Juluka.

Talking Heads were strongly influenced by Fela Kuti and Africa 70's sound. Recordings of African popular music were difficult to come by in the pre-CD, pre-internet era. Most appeared in the USA in the luggage of African students or folks buying records at Sterns in London or FNAC in Paris. This meant a lot of Zairean soukous bands, but in New York it was pretty easy to find Nigerians listening to eastern Nigerian guitar bands like Prince Nico Mbarga and Ikenga Super Stars.

That jangly "worldbeat" sound mainly came from cheap, sometimes home made guitars amped up as loud as possible on home made amps without any special effects pedals. Usually three or more (often capo-ed or cross-tuned) guitars would be fingerpicking melodic chords over a whomping bass with drums and the end effect is something that was difficult for American rock musicians to figure out.
posted by zaelic at 12:57 AM on September 9 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Some great tracks and artists already mentioned, and some interesting history of this sound. The guitarists also have descriptive names, Seckou 'Diamond Fingers' Diabate of Bembeya Jazz, and Diblo 'Machine Gun' Dibala of Kanda Bongo Man, for example.
I don't know the lineage of this sound, but it was all over the continent of Africa in the 1980's, from the Soweto to the Sahara in one form or another.

Here are a few more bangers to add to the list:
T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Angelina II
Bhundu Boys - Hupenyu Hwangu -1989 Live
Samba Mapangala - Yembele
Orchestra Marrabenta Star de Mozambique feat. Dulce - Wene u n'ga yale
The Green Arrows - No Delay (Bullitt)
Songhoy Blues - Al Hassidi Terei
Tinawiren - entire set performed in 2004, band formed in 1979.

I don't know which Ikenga Super Stars track you were intending to link, zaelic, but here's a nice one. Your link is pointing at Fela Zombie.

Finally, Analog Africa specialise in rereleasing less well known music of the 1960's - 1980's if you want to go deeper. The Green Arrows track above was their first release. Unearthing forgotten vinyl almost cost label founder Samy Ben Redjeb his life when he contracted a serious lung disease from the boxes of old records he stored in his bedroom. We can enjoy his dedication to sharing these sounds without the possibility of life-threatening infections!
posted by asok at 2:12 PM on September 9 [3 favorites]