The Root : It’s been a long, slow dance between the United States and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, one that started 40 years ago when the Nigerian musician first toured America and is finally picking up tempo today, with the Broadway show Fela! opening to raves this week and a movie biopic reportedly in the works. That the Afrobeat star and political firebrand is reaching the wider American consciousness...
Our last top 10 show of 2009, before our roundup of all the best releases of the year on January 1. Special surprises this show include Italian and Sardinian music with tones of elsewhere, and a tasty tune from Madagascar's Kilema. Enjoy. Top 10 World Music CDs: Spin The Globe playlist for 27 November 2009 as heard on radio KAOS, 89.3 FM Listen/download for a limited time at: soundroots.podomatic.com...
AllThatsFab was fortunate enough to receive an invite to a preview of Fela! on Broadway earier this month! For those that don’t know, Fela! is a new musical on Broadway that is about the life and times of Fela Kuti, a legendary, but controversial Nigerian singer/entertainer and aspiring politician. Celebrities such as Jay-Z, [...]
I am thankful to Otis Redding, for writing "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay," and for singing it. I am thankful that I have a job and that we have enough to eat. I would appreciate more time to take hot baths by myself, but hey, two out of three is not bad. I am thankful for my family: my mother, my father, my brothers, my wife and my daughters. They drive me nuts sometimes, so I'm sure...
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Geeta Dayal's 33 1/3 book Brian Eno's Another Green World explores the musician at the time of...
We gave you the scoop on ‘Fela! The Musical’ in August; Now its here! The musical officially opened on Broadway yesterday. The show which is set to be one of the hottest Broadway tickets of the season is heavily backed by entertainment industry heavyweights including Jay Z and Will Smith. The role of Fela is played by Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo.The synopsis: Enter the extravagant, decadent,...
Kudos to PopJustice for tipping the planet off to Ellie Goulding and Erik Hassle's quite lovely cover of Robyn's "Be Mine!" The frantic strings and urgent beats that punctuated the pixie-coiffed singer's original version are swapped out here for an acoustic guitar. And you know what? Not only does it work in its own right, it offers a neat reminder that Robyn can write some heart-rending...
Every day a multitude of stars wanders through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild. Monday night (November 23) saw the premiere of the [...]
The most interesting thing in the NYT review about the Broadway musical Feli! ? Not this... True, this kinetic portrait of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, a Nigerian revolutionary of song, has taken on some starry producers — including Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith — and shed 15 or 20 minutes since it was staged Off Broadway last year. ...or this: For there has never been anything...
Jay arrives at the opening night of Fela!, the new Broadway production based on the music of legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. I remember ?uestlove raving about this on Twitter last year after catching it during its short off-Broadway run. Jay and Will & Jada put up some bread to finance this new run.
Fela! Hit Broadway for its opening night in NYC Monday evening, and Camel was in attendance sans Bey Bey again… More Images and NYTimes review for “Fela!” under the hood… The hot (and seriously cool) energy that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of “Fela!,” which opened on Monday night, feels as if [...]
2009's hottest series is hands down Strut Records ' Inspiration Information, which managed to provide not one but two top notch collaborations by mixing and matching legends with talents, first with the Mulatu Astatke and Heliocentrics bid, and now with Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen .
John Hollenbeck recombines the familiar in compositions that are startlingly new. His new Eternal Interlude is among the best jazz of 2009. Here, he explains his quirky, fresh methods. Jazz—or creative/improvised music if you prefer to take an artsy stance—doesn't get much more incandescent than Eternal Interludes, the latest recording by the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble. Hollenbeck's...
by BBG Antibalas in Philly on 6/6 (more by Tim Griffin) Much like The Roots, who they shared the stage with at The Roots Picnic in June, have been doing lately, Antibalas will play a NYC residency. Theirs will take...
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