Great music deserves dedication. That’s why we’ve worked hard to bring a FULL ON blast of 8 piece Afrobeat band MANKALA to the CAI on Friday (12/3) [vids below]. They dedicated themselves to writing a FUNKY, AFRO, DANCE-based music that hasn’t passed through Cardiff in a long time. But that’s the afrobeat way. Never the mainstream in Europe, not for decades anywhere. At Ba-Ba-Boom! we dedicate a lot of time to afrobeat at one of our sister nights, Juju Nations, and we’ve got the Juju Nations DJs joining the Ba-Ba-Boom! residents on Friday.
But dedication extends further, and as afrobeat fans we are all benefiting from the dedication of those DJs that hunt across west Africa looking for old afrobeat/funk/highlife 45s that get lovingly restored an re-issued on quality labels like Soundway and Analogue Africa. Collectors like Frank Gossner who regularly trawls Ghana and Nigeria for DJs from the 1970s so he can buy all their old vinyl, and hunt down the old artists so they get their royalties. Frank blogs on his progress and uploads mixes of his latest finds on one of the best blogs on the net: http://voodoofunk.blogspot.com/ (seriously worth downloading some tunes). And I’ll always love these recent pics from when he stumbled across an old dis-used warehouse in Lagos stacked to the roof with old records:
Frank lives in New York, and re-issues stuff through local label Academy LPs. He’s doing a DJ tour of Europe in the summer and we’re trying to bring him to the CAI (along with another great afro-blogger, Brian Shimkovitz of Awesome Tapes from Africa: http://awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com, another truly dedicated gent).
And its with this dedication burnt on our hearts that we recommend this Mankala gig at the CAI on Friday 12th March. If our conviction alone doesn’t convince you, then check these videos of the band themselves. This is going to be a seriously rocking party, and you don’t want to miss it.
Ba-
Ba-
BOOM!
