African music
Go inside salegy, the music that dominates Madagascar
In the days after World War II, musicians in the northern villages of the huge island nation of Madagascar started fusing traditional folk songs with modern styles. The result was a style called salegy, and it’s still everywhere in Madagascar, now evolving for yet another new age.
For a band of boys from Malawi, ‘performing is easy, life is hard’
The Malawi Mouse Boys grew up in deep poverty, selling their namesake rodents to make money. But despite being cut off from outside music, with self-taught skills and self-made instruments, they created a unique sound that now has them performing around the world.
The music of JuJu is where West African tradition meets English punk
The genre “world music” is hard to define: It covers a broad range of styles and is constantly evolving. Take, for instance, the Gambian-English band JuJu — they derive equal inspiration from traditional West African music as they do from classic punk.
Can music help stop the tragic shipwrecks of migrants coming from Africa?
Nigerian musician Tony Allen is not a young man anymore. But the former drummer for bandleader Fela Kuti is a fresh voice trying to draw attention to the horrific boat accidents that are killing thousands of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.