Our Links

The African Music Group - The African Music Discussion forum & Mail list, now on
The African Music Web Ring - The web ring that connects all the African Music sites around the world now on

Winner "The Best African Music Site" 2008 Black Web Awards

A Big Thank you to all our members

Featured Links

Putumayo World Music - Established in 1993 to introduce people to the music of other cultures, Putumayo World Music is a specialist world music label who have produced some great African Music CD's and have helped promote African music artists.

We highly recommend this award winning program from the BBC World Service. The Story of Africa tells the history of the continent from an African perspective.

African Drum Beat - Educational and informative site dedicated to West African drumming rhythms and percussion music from Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea and particularly rhythms associated with Djembe, Sabar, and Kpanlogo drums.

Wanted

We are looking for writers, photographers, reviewers who would like to help us build this site. For more information see our Contributors Corner.

Featured Books

We're often asked what books we recommend about African Music. Unfortunately, many books on African music go out of print but below are our recommendations:

West African Pop Roots
John Collins / Paperback / 350 pages / 1992

John Collins is Professor of Music at the University of Ghana, and lives just outside Accra. He has his own band and working as musician and recording engineer he has met or worked with virtually everybody who was anybody in West African popular music from early highlife bandleaders like E.T. Mensah to the late Fela Kuti. The book consists largely of short chapters about individual performers, grouped roughly according to chronology and geography. Much of the material is anecdotal, letting the performers speak for themselves. A great book and well worth reading!

World Music: Africa, Europe & the Middle East (Rough Guides Series) 
Paperback / 2000
There are two volumes in the new edition of the Rough Guide: this volume covers Africa, Europe and the Middle East, while Volume Two has the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. This volume is divided into three geographical sections: Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Within each section the entries are arranged alphabetically by country or by ethnic group. The discographies follow the arrangement of each article and when it makes things clearer by style (for example, Nigeria has sections for Traditional, Juju, Fuji, Highlife, and Afro-beat). Compilations are listed first and artists follow (listed A-Z), with a brief biography and reviews of their key discs.

Each section has one or two 'star discs' which are indicated by a CD symbol. These are the ones to buy first. All other selections are preceded by a CD, cassette or vinyl symbol: those specified as cassette or vinyl are not available on CD but worth checking out all the same.

Soukous In Central Park - Kanda Bongo Man
With a move to Paris in 1979, Kanda moved Soukous into hi-energy dance floor music. Traditional Soukous follows a standard Zaiko song which has a long Rhumba section followed by a faster Seben. Kanda, eliminated the Rhumba using only the Seben, producing tracks that were suitable for the dance floors of London and Paris.

Click here to Order Soukoius In Central Park from Amazon.com

Learn to drum with Babatunde Olatunji. The acknowledged master of African drumming presents essential tech techniques, rhythmic patterns and concepts for drummers of all levels. The spiritual powers of 'the drum' and drumming are the focus of this video. Inspiring lessons and performances will expand anyone's playing on the Ashiko, Djembe and related drums.