So much flies by in our information streams, does anyone else wonder about why/how something catches enough of your curiosity to follow a link? Despite all the problems of social media, it works best when someone you follow indicates something of interest that you might never come across in your usual readings.
It’s like opening up a discarded magazine left on a park bench.
This came in Mastodon via a boost from Tim Bray:
Why would I listen to the music? It was the phrasing in this post
This is Alghafiat by Amanar. I love the laid-back feel. Bonus points for including the gasba (reed flute).
Believing music is a vehicle for transmitting ideas, their lyrics discuss the need for education, critique corruption amongst the elite, and call for a united Mali. Due to the Northern Mali conflict; prohibitions on performing music, etc., the band is in exile (AFAIK).
Lyrics discussing the need for education in Mali! Indeed I am enjoying music that I would not hear otherwise.
This is all nice, but I am looking at that icon drawing of a man in desert garb holding a cell phone and the title “Music from Saharan Cellphones”
Now I am drawn in, and a link in the caption takes me to a Bandcamp page to learn about this:
Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation of music collected from memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert.
In much of West Africa, cellphones are are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, playback songs on tinny built in speakers, and swap files in a very literal peer to peer Bluetooth wireless transfer.
The songs chosen for the compilation were some of the highlights – music that is immensely popular on the unofficial mp3/cellphone network from Abidjan to Bamako to Algiers, but have limited or no commercial release. They’re also songs that tend towards this new world of self production – Fruity Loops, home studios, synthesizers, and Autotune.
In 2010, various versions of saharan cellphone music were released on cassette. Many of the songs were unlabeled, giving no insight to their mysterious origins. In the past year, the artists have been tracked down to collaborate on a commercial release. As such, 50% of the proceeds go directly to the artists.
Whether you like the music or not, this as a practice is amazing to me! Yes, Bandcamp has copyrighted music, and it is there for sale (to support artists), but I can listen for free. I can share for free.
Music, and the spoken word from real people (note Notebook LLM), That’s of interest to me. Have you ever wandered the world of global radio via Radio Garden?
And stay “tuned” – we will be in the call for more audio like this worth sharing.