Focus Musiciens d’Afghanistan : la mort ou l’exil ? By François Bensignor - 24 January 2022 Le 22 novembre 2021 à Kaboul, le ministère de la Promotion de la vertu et de la Prévention du vice, chargé de veiller au respect de la charia dans l’espace public afghan, annonçait une série d’interdictions, parmi lesquels « les...
Focus Reggae Indien, porte-voix des hauts parleur By Samuel Degasne - 10 January 2022 Deuxième pays le plus peuplé du monde, aux multiples subtilités religieuses, linguistiques et culturelles, on résume pourtant le plus souvent l’Inde à son expression musicale la plus folklorique… ou cinématique ! À tort car, à...
Focus Le brega au Brésil, la revanche des ringards By Eric Delhaye - 16 December 2021 À l’opposé de la bossa nova du chic carioca, les modestes du Nordeste et du Nord se sont épris des crooners comme Reginaldo Rossi qui assénait : « Quand le peuple aime, c’est brega. »
Focus Martina A. Catella : Un pont entre deux rives, la voix au centre By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 6 December 2021 Ethnomusicologue spécialiste des musiques soufies, pianiste, chanteuse et directrice artistique de créations interculturelles qui ont marqué l’histoire de ces vingt dernières années, Martina A. Catella est aussi une exceptionnelle pédagogue...
Focus The eclectic artists of ACCES 2021, pan-African music trade show By Gabriel Myers Hansen - 29 November 2021 First held in Dakar, Senegal, in 2017, ACCES has become arguably the most important music trade show on the African continent. This year, the fourth edition of the pan-African music conference will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the...
Focus Madagascar : eldorado musical? épisode 2 By Samuel Degasne - 22 November 2021 Méconnue, sous-estimée, voire pillée… Et si la musique malgache était à l’origine du maloya réunionnais, du mouvement hip-hop et du reggae ? Enquête sur un secret bien gardé. Suite et fin de notre série malgache ! Découvrez...
Focus Madagascar : eldorado musical ? épisode 1 By Samuel Degasne - 15 November 2021 Méconnue, sous-estimée, voire pillée… Et si la musique malgache était à l’origine du maloya réunionnais, du mouvement hip-hop et du reggae ? Et si elle avait aussi inspiré le rock 60s et la techno ? Une théorie qui expliquerait la...
Focus Le Liban inventif et tolérant de Zeid Hamdan By benjamin MiNiMuM - 11 November 2021 Rencontre avec Zeid Hamdan, musicien et producteur libanais dont les innovations lui ont valu le surnom de « Pape de l’underground du Moyen-Orient ». Le duo Soapkills qu’il formait avec Yasmine Hamdan, au début des années 2000, fut l’une...
Focus For a new awareness of music listening By Alejandro Abbud Torres Torija - 2 November 2021 What is the role of music today in our modern societies? Traditionally, when we think of music we tend to focus on composers, performers or on music compositions themselves, but rarely on the listeners and this despite the fact that we live in...
Focus L’ethnomusicologie au féminin pluriel By benjamin MiNiMuM - 18 October 2021 Enquête sur l’évolution et les nouvelles approches de l’ethnomusicologie et autres disciplines universitaires abordant la musique ‚auprès des chercheuses diplômées dynamiques, passionnées et lucides Marta Amico, Lucille Lisack et Emilie...
Focus More female musicians breaking barriers in Zanzibari music By Lucy Llado - 4 October 2021 While the music profession in Zanzibar tilts the balance towards men, more and more women have been breaking barriers and injecting their talent into the perceived sound of the Indian Ocean archipelago. One of the earliest examples of a...
Focus Musiques Nomades Episode 3 : Kel Tamasheq, Peuls & Pygmées. By François Bensignor - 1 October 2021 Passé le détroit de Gibraltar dans le sens inverse des migrants, allons à la rencontre du premier des grands peuples nomades d’Afrique. Nous leur donnons le nom de Touareg, mais eux-mêmes se nomment Kel Tamasheq (ceux qui parlent le tamasheq)....
Focus Baden Powell, le paradoxe de la Bossa Nova By Dominique Dreyfuss - 27 September 2021 Génial guitariste et compositeur brésilien, Baden Powell, décédé il y a 21 ans le 26 septembre 2000, a passé une grande partie de sa vie à Paris, d’où il aura ouvert les oreilles des Français aux subtilités des musiques de son pays....
Focus Musiques nomades, épisode 2 : les Roms et leurs diasporas By François Bensignor - 20 September 2021 D’où viennent les Tsiganes et les Gitans ? Tout porte à croire que leurs ancêtres ont commencé leur migration vers l’Europe à partir du Rajasthan, au Nord de l’Inde. On situe leur départ entre le Ve et le Xe siècles. Ils auraient mis...
Focus ¡ FRANCHEMENT ! « Born On Line » le 22 septembre, quatre projets nés en ligne, un rendez-vous sur scène By benjamin MiNiMuM - 13 September 2021 Ana Carla Maza, Bedouin Burger, Cynthia Abraham et Komasi sont les quatre finalistes de l’appel à projets « Born On Line ». Lancé par Zone Franche, le réseau des musiques du monde qui pilote aussi le média #AuxSons, l’appel à projets «...
Focus Musiques nomades, épisode 1 : de la Sibérie orientale à l’Asie centrale By François Bensignor - 6 September 2021 Les musiques nomadisent tout autour de la terre. On peut même dire que toute musique est devenue nomade, tant la capacité de circuler de par le globe s’est accrue avec le web. Parallèlement, bien des populations nomades ont du se sédentariser....
Focus Women in Egyptian music By Nadya Shanab - 30 August 2021 This article was written for Music In Africa. #AuxSons has translated it in french as part of a media partnership agreement. Music industries are often a mirror of the society they exist in, and just as Egyptian society is a...
Focus Covid and the cultural crisis in Barcelona By Marushka Vidovic - 26 July 2021 When burgeoning Mellow Productions announced on 5th March that, due to the health crisis, it was cancelling the imminent launch of the Jazz Effusion event, everyone said it was exaggerating. Ten days later Barcelona was in lockdown. And it was one...
Focus Racines et Fiertés Afro-colombiennes By Elodie Maillot - 5 July 2021 Longtemps dévalorisées en Colombie, les racines africaines irriguent les musiques des côtes Caraïbe et Pacifique et les tubes électro urbains colombiens, depuis l’arrivée des esclaves (et plus tard des disques de soukous) à...
Focus Women in Northern Nigerian music By Ibrahim Malumfashi - 28 June 2021 This article was originally written for Music In Africa and shared with #AuxSons as part of a media partnership agreement. This article provides an overview of the role and status of women in Northern Nigerian music, contributing both a...
Focus La Révolution par le micro : Interview de Grup Yorum By benjamin MiNiMuM - 17 June 2021 En mai 2021, le groupe « révolutionnaire » turc Grup Yorum s’est réfugié en Ile-de-France pour préparer un concert live sur internet afin de rendre hommage à Helin Bölek et Ibrahim Gökçek, leurs deux membres décédés au printemps 2020...
Focus Metal à Madagascar : rencontre avec LohArano By Samuel Degasne - 14 June 2021 Il y a 15 ans, une étude du ministère de la Culture indiquait que le metal restait le courant musical le moins aimé des Français, et ce, avant le hip-hop… En cause, notamment : un manque de connaissance (provoqué par son absence des...
Focus Métal : Une musique du monde By Myriam Batoul Reggab - 7 June 2021 Mon intérêt pour le métal, en tant que marocaine, est fréquemment chez les occidentaux une source d’étonnement. La présence surprenante de cette contre-culture au Maroc n’est pourtant pas un cas isolé : dans la banlieue de Hareré au...
Focus Afrique : la mémoire du beat By Jeanne Lacaille - 31 May 2021 Une enquête sur les modes de relecture, réinvention, sauvegarde et transmission des patrimoines musicaux traditionnels par le prisme de la musique électronique sur le continent africain. Nyege Nyege Festival en Ouganda, Africa Bass Culture au...
Focus Indigenous song keepers reveal traditional ecological knowledge in music By Dana Lepofsky, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Oqwilowgwa Kim Recalma-Clutesi - 25 May 2021 Since the beginning of time, music has been a way of communicating observations of and experiences about the world. For Indigenous Peoples who have lived within their traditional territories for generations, music is a repository of ecological...
Focus Trésors méconnus des musiques d’Océanie - épisode 2 - La Mélanésie By François Bensignor - 17 May 2021 Après avoir jeté l’ancre à Hawaï et en Polynésie française dans l’épisode 1, cap sur la Mélanésie dans ce deuxième épisode : direction Vanuatu, les îles Salomon, Bougainville et la Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée pour entendre les...
Focus Raptivisme : en Amérique latine, le rap vecteur des combats féministes By Lise Segas - 10 May 2021 Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original. Le 9 mars 2020, à la suite des Espagnoles, les femmes mexicaines se sont mises en grève générale. Elles ont cessé...
Focus Trésors méconnus des musiques d’Océanie - épisode 1 - La Polynésie By François Bensignor - 3 May 2021 L’Océanie est une immensité marine parsemée d’archipels minuscules. Magellan, premier Européen à s’y aventurer voici précisément cinq siècles en cette année 2021, mit plus de trois mois pour la traverser. Mais il ne rencontra que deux...
Focus DJ Arafat, bandit ou prophète ? La légende du petit nouchi ivoirien devenu Zeus d’Afrique By Muriel Champy - 26 April 2021 Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original. Pour toute une jeunesse populaire, l’artiste de coupé décalé ivoirien, décédé tragiquement en 2019, a incarné l’ascension...
Focus Musical instruments of Lesotho By Mpho Molikeng - 19 April 2021 This article was originally written for Music In Africa and shared with #AuxSons as part of a media partnership agreement. Lesotho has a proud heritage of traditional music. Although the strength of this music usually lies in the...
Focus Portraying the city through music By Alejandro Abbud Torres Torija - 12 April 2021 What can music tell us about cities? Can musical city portraits be a starting point to reflect on ways in which music represents cities and contributes to the creation of shared memories associating places and music? This article is an invitation to...
Focus Une musique contemporaine attachée à ses racines : Cheb, Guedra Guedra, Othman el Kheloufi… By Hajar Chokairi - 6 April 2021 Au Maroc, depuis quelques années déjà, on dépoussière le passé. Alors que le rap et la trap sont sur toutes les ondes, une vague d’artistes indépendants réinvestit le patrimoine populaire, à contre-courant. « J’aime le chaâbi, les...
Focus Les femmes dans l’industrie musicale du Liberia By Robin Dopoe Jr - 29 March 2021 Depuis les années 1960, l'industrie musicale du Liberia est dominée et contrôlée par les hommes. Pourtant, avant l'arrivée de l'industrie du disque durant cette décennie, les femmes présidaient les cérémonies musicales traditionnelles.
Focus Les 90’s oubliées de la musique électronique marocaine By Guedra Guedra - 22 March 2021 Dans la continuité du Focus « Brève histoire de la musique électronique en Tunisie », et « L’underground algérien… un projet ambitieux à connaître ! » cet article vient clore une série sur les musiques électroniques du...
Focus Tanguero Major - Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 15 March 2021 Il y a 100 ans, le 11 mars 1921 naissait à Mar del Plata en Argentine, un petit bonhomme dont le destin fut d’abolir les frontières du tango, de frotter cette musique à une multitude de styles existants et de terminer sa vie en géant de la...
Focus L’underground algérien… un projet ambitieux à connaître! By Anset & Zzar - 8 March 2021 Dans la continuité du Focus « Brève histoire de la musique électronique en Tunisie », cet article s’inscrit dans une série sur l’électro au Maghreb, à suivre ! Sur les hauteurs d’Alger, le son des caissons de basse résonne...
Focus Bashung en version ultramarine : un concert réunionnais By Anne-Laure Lemancel - 1 March 2021 À La Réunion, les concerts se poursuivent malgré les restrictions sanitaires. L’occasion pour Nathalie Natiembé, la « punkette du maloya », de faire entendre sa version de Bashung. Un concert habité, riche d’émotions, au...
Focus Nouvelles Ballades Irlandaises By benjamin MiNiMuM - 22 February 2021 Un proverbe irlandais annonce : « Si tu jettes une pierre à travers la vitre d’un pub, tu blesses deux poètes et trois musiciens ». La musique est plus vivante dans le quotidien des Irlandais que dans la majorité des pays...
Focus Brève histoire de la musique électronique en Tunisie. By Zied Meddeb Hamrouni - 15 February 2021 Dix ans après la « révolution de la dignité », #AuxSons revient sur l’essor de la musique électronique en Tunisie. Ce Focus ouvre une nouvelle série sur les scènes électro du Maghreb, à suivre ! Les prémisses de la...
Focus Breizh-Kabylie, dialogue musical By Coline Houssais - 8 February 2021 2020 aurait dû marquer le cinquième anniversaire de la désormais traditionnelle Fête bretonne-berbère organisée chaque année au mois de juin sur le parvis de la basilique Saint-Denis. Retour sur les affinités musicales qui unissent depuis...
Focus Tuku and Bra Hugh: A friendship that will never be forgotten By Lucy Ilado - 1 February 2021 This article was originally written for Music In Africa. #AuxSons has translated it into French as part of a media partnership agreement. On January the 23rd, Africa remembered arguably two of the continent’s greatest musicians, Hugh ‘Bra...
Focus Chanson française et musiques du monde petite promenade dans des influences communes (épisode 2) By Véronique Mortaigne - 25 January 2021 Cette semaine du Brésil de Georges Moustaki aux inspirations sans frontières de Charles Aznavour en passant par la tradition française de la Musette.
Focus Chanson française et musiques du monde, petite promenade dans des influences communes (épisode 1) By Véronique Mortaigne - 18 January 2021 De par leurs origines ou leurs goûts des voyages musicaux, nombreux sont les ténors de la chanson française qui se sont inspirés des vibrations sonores des continents extra occidentaux. Une promenade en deux parties. Cette semaine : Des années...
Focus South Africa: Amapiano, the dance soundtrack to Covid By Jean-Christophe Servant - 11 January 2021 While Master KG’s Jerusalema – and its choreographic challenges – became the world’s weapon against depression in 2020, South Africa is sending a reminder, with Amapiano, that it produced the most exciting dance music in the world for more...
Focus What are we listening to? A journey into the definitions of world music By Marta Amico - 30 December 2020 Imagine following an alien reporter sent to Earth to study this thing called “music” that is still unknown on their home planet. Curious about this strange mix of sounds and passions, he opens up the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and reads this...
Focus JAZZ, CAURIS, COSMOS & PULSATION (dans la seconde partie du XXe siècle) By Denis Péan - 27 December 2020 Denis Péan, chanteur du groupe Lo'jo, offre un florilège poétique et métaphysique parcourant les liens entre jazz et métissages musicaux : « Dois-je commencer par la légendaire toque de Thelonius Monk tel un couvre-chef de roi africain, ou...
Focus Lullabies, come hell or high water By Julie Henoch - 21 December 2020 What is a lullaby? Ethnomusicologist Madeleine Leclerc and musicians Piers Faccini and Robin Girod give us their takes. In 1969, the ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp held out his microphone in the village of Filinui in the Solomon Islands. He...
Focus Do you speak UNESCO? Music, heritage of humanity By François Mauger - 14 December 2020 In mid-December, Algerian raï and Argentine chamamé are expected to join Iraqi makam, Georgian polyphonic singing and the Barranquilla carnival on the “representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity”. How is this UNESCO...
Focus Mogoya (episode 2) By Andy Morgan - 7 December 2020 Read episode 1. Rapper Ami Yerewolo, a paradigm of outspokenness, agrees: “Like everything in a society, mogoya has its strengths and its weaknesses. Its strength is that when you have a problem, the whole family is with you. We sleep together,...
Focus Mogoya By Andy Morgan - 30 November 2020 Mogoya is a Mandé word that’s often translated as ‘human-ness’ or ‘person-hood’. I find that translation unsatisfactory because a human or a person can be good or bad. A better approximation is the Yiddish word ‘mensch’. A ‘mogo’...
Focus Diggers, adventurers into almost lost sounds By Baba Squaaly - 23 November 2020 As their name suggests, “diggers” are like miners. Plunging deep into the bowels of music, they unearth nuggets to share with the world. We meet some of those who pan for gold in the music of yesteryear for a better understanding of how they...
Focus Women and singing in Somali culture By Bashir Goth - 16 November 2020 This article was written for Music In Africa. #AuxSons has translated it in french as part of a media partnership agreement. Some extracts have been abbreviated (…). To read the full article, visit the Music In Africa website. Singing is...
Focus The greatness and neglect of Iraq’s Jewish musicians By Coline Houssais - 9 November 2020 Artists of the Jewish faith and culture played an important role in the music of the Arab world until the first half of the 20th century, from the strong tradition in Andalusia to the Maghreb and singing Egyptian film stars – a natural consequence...
Focus Zambia 50 years on from Zamrock By Jean-Christophe Servant - 2 November 2020 Half a century after the golden age of Zambian rock, the country still vibrates to the sound of its local cultures blended with the music of the moment. But while so many artists are dreaming above all of fame and fortune, the rapper Pilato is...
Focus Responsible music and digital technology, the transition is still to come By Gwen Sharp - 26 October 2020 While the rise in the use of digital media in our professions and the rapid increase in the number of events broadcast online have been at the heart of the pandemic crisis, the understanding and calculation of its environmental impact remains...
Focus What’s new in the tradition of Shashmaqom? By Lucille Lisack - 19 October 2020 What if a tradition could go back in time, with the help of modernist creativity, instead of having to flow with the current, passed down from generation to generation? Let’s take a look at the case of Uzbek-Tajik Shashmaqom, designated as a...
Focus Modern urban troubadours: Beggars or buskers? By Alejandro Abbud Torres Torija - 10 October 2020 A panoramic perspective of urban music troubadours, the role they play in public spaces and some lessons we can learn from them.
Focus What role does music play in Chile’s social revolution? By Agathe Petit - 4 October 2020 On 25 October 2020, Chileans will vote on changes to this constitution in a referendum. The political battle has been launched, in a context in which Coronavirus has slowed mobilisation and exacerbated social inequalities. A few weeks before...
Focus Indigenous rap goes to war in Brazil By Eric Delhaye - 27 September 2020 Whether they live in rural areas or in cities, the diversity of their codes and expressions overturns the stereotypes they have been saddled with. But they all produce lyrics that are fiercely committed to denouncing the globalised political,...
Focus Brazil under Bolsonaro : how is the music sector reacting ? By Dominique Dreyfus - 21 September 2020 “The music industry is more committed than ever. The protests aren’t targeted at specific social problems: racism, sexism, poverty, unemployment, homophobia, violence, ecology... ”.
Focus Musical asylum By Emilie Da Lage - 13 September 2020 There is a musical globalisation that is little talked about. It spreads from camp to camp via the gaps in the deadly checks at Europe’s borders. Among the men and women who can be described as exiles it accompanies and supports the desire to...
Focus Refree, revolutionary in traditions By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 5 September 2020 Multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Raul Fernandez Miro, better known as Refree, keeps his ears open wide at all times. With no ulterior motive and allowing free rein to his instincts, he pushes his partners to new creative heights and...
Focus Our elders: libraries consumed by flames during lockdown By Arnaud Robert - 20 July 2020 Hariprasad Chaurasia, Danyel Waro, Joyce, Ray Lema, Zakir Hussain...they may all be giants of the music scene, but they also belong to a group considered “at risk” during the current health emergency. At a time where the elderly are quarantined,...
Focus Regional languages and cultures in danger - in France’s overseas territories By François Bensignor - 6 July 2020 Disparity is hard to ignore when it comes to geography, status, culture and language in France’s overseas territories. But this diversity is at odds with the first paragraph of Article 2 of the French constitution: “The language of the Republic...
Focus Afro-descendant jazz sets the tone… except in France By Emma-Sacha Morizan - 22 June 2020 While jazz is regaining popularity with millennials thanks, in large part, to hybrid compositions by black musicians haunted by its social and militant DNA, it’s clear that in France, the genre is represented by a rather inward-looking white...
Focus Chimurenga: a musical struggle in Zimbabwe By François Mauger - 7 June 2020 When Bob Marley performed a historic concert to celebrate Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, did he suspect that the country’s “chimurenga”, or fight for freedom, was only just beginning? Let’s tune into 40 years of history and music, from...
Focus Regional languages in danger - in Metropolitan France By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 25 May 2020 Languages are like species: some are doing well; others are dying out. While scientists agree in estimating that around 7,000 languages are currently in use around the world – in addition to thousands of dialects – half of them are likely to...
Focus Narcocorridos : A musical tradition perverted by violence? By Alejandro Abbud Torres Torija - 11 May 2020 Although intimately related, narcocorridos can’t be entirely blamed for drug violence. Drug violence is to blame for narcocorridos. These songs are very popular in Mexico but are also a phenomenon found in other drug-ridden countries in Latin...
Focus Reflected in the Other: Jazz and World Music By Stéphane Ollivier - 27 April 2020 Jazz was born a century ago in New Orleans before spreading all over the world and staking its claim as the source of the main forms of popular music that emerged after the war. Still today, jazz remains “Creole” music at its best, both...
Focus World music and the biodiversity challenge By Frank Tenaille - 13 April 2020 Our destructive society of the Anthropocene era would be well advised to make good use of the rich teachings of early humans. Maintaining the links between nature and culture, their musicians, in particular, paid careful attention to the planet’s...
Focus Music to fight to By Anne-Laure Lemancel - 30 March 2020 All over the world, combat sports and music are closely linked, drawing on traditions and spirituality. A quick overview offers three examples: capoeira in Brazil, moringue in Réunion and taiko drumming in Japan. Because martial arts...
Focus Country gets its groove back By Eric Delhaye - 16 March 2020 At the recent Grammy Awards, the rapper Lil Nas X began by walking the red carpet in a candy pink cowboy outfit, before performing his hit “Old Town Road” with the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. The 20-year-old gay African-American had been the...
Focus Female rappers & Africa in 2020: Ears to the ground ! By Jeanne Lacaille - 2 March 2020 Are female rappers Africa’s new griots in 2020? One thing is certain, African hip-hop is standing tall as these women offer modern takes that are uninhibited, in step with the times and uncompromising. Rap to live Thanks to the...
Focus “We don’t have the right to make mistakes”: the struggle of Brazil’s female musicians By Sarah Cozzolino - 17 February 2020 Samba, forró… In Brazilian music, women have often been relegated to the role of singers and dancers. But all-women groups have formed in recent years and been forced to contend with Brazil’s cultural machismo. “We are women of all colours,...
Focus The song “Gbaka” by Daouda Le Sentimental : A whistleblowing anthem By Soro Solo - 3 February 2020 The song “Gbaka” by Daouda Le Sentimental saved the life of informal transport in Abidjan in 1976. We take a look at this whistleblowing anthem. Daouda Koné began working in Ivorian television as a technical controller. During his...
Focus What role can contemporary world music play in tackling environmental challenges? By Gwen Sharp - 20 January 2020 Last November, the London-based organisation Julie’s Bicycle, a pioneer in supporting the creative community to act on climate change, received the award for professional excellence at WOMEX 2019, the international world music expo. The year 2019...
Focus Graceland, the disputed summit of a landmark in World Music By Jean-Christophe Servant - 6 January 2020 With the release of Graceland on 26 August 1986, the South Africa of the townships under a state of emergency, Zulu miners’ hostels and the rhythms of Mbaqanga and Shangaan, the musician Paul Simon flew in through the large window to land in the...
Focus The avatars of Indian music By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 9 December 2019 For Indians, music goes back to the very origin of the world. Over the centuries, it has developed a strong identity that has allowed it to welcome countless foreign influences without losing anything of its remarkable essence. In Indian...
Focus Venezuela: music suffocated by the crisis By Inès #AuxSons - 25 November 2019 Music is still queen in Venezuela, a land of salsa and rhythms inherited from Africa. But the economic, political and social crisis in the country has put a serious break on the production and creation of music in a nation that was once one of the...
Focus Maku Music By Guy Sioui Durand - 11 November 2019 “Music is the only universal language, the only one that is understood and spoken in each of the 195 countries on this planet.” Tomson Highway Few people on the other side of keechigamaak, “the big water” as the Eeyou call the...
Focus Flamenco 2.0, the small revolutions of a new generation? By Inès #AuxSons - 28 October 2019 Neo flamenco, millennial flamenco, ex flamenco or flamenco 2.0 are just some of the names for the music of a new generation of Spanish musicians (like Rosalía and Niño del Elche) who blend traditional flamenco with the sounds of electro, R&B...
Focus The accordion: a musical instrument that knows no borders By Inès #AuxSons - 14 October 2019 There was a need in the early 19th century to invent a new musical instrument that imitated the human voice. The weakening of the nobility in Europe and the emergence of a powerful bourgeoisie in the middle of the Romantic period influenced both the...
Focus The elegance and the dance By Manuel Charpy - 30 September 2019 On Sunday evenings in the bars of Brazzaville’s Bacongo district, Congolese rumba and Sape become one. Against the soundscape of music playing from walls of speakers, members of the informal Société des Ambianceurs et de Personnes Élegantes...
Focus Contemporary music: an Arab story By Mounir Kabbaj - 16 September 2019 In the 70’s: committed young people with a taste for globalisation and revisiting their heritage In the early 1970s, the Arab world was a heterogeneous group of young nation states from North Africa, East Africa, the Indian Ocean and the...
Focus Surrounded by vibrations By Eva Dréano - 2 September 2019 Scared of relapsing into the same old daily routine of commuting and work? September is here with its share of stress and new projects. Here are some tips for rising above it and taking a deep breath to help you face the season in better shape....
Focus New Caledonia, roots and canoes By Sylvain Derne - 22 July 2019 An archipelago of 18,000 km² in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, New Caledonia is home to a prodigious diversity of languages and cultural communities among a population of just under 300,000. Its musical expressions – long polarised and...
Focus From Mayotte to Réunion, the body at every latitude By Sandrine Le Coz - 9 July 2019 In 2018, the driving force behind Kassav’, Jacob Desvarieux, put his weight behind the new scene coming out of France’s overseas territories by inviting their promising talents to the Olympia. For this second part of our cycle dedicated to the...
Focus Musical aesthetics in the French Antilles and French Guiana By Bertrand Dicale - 24 June 2019 When we talk about Creole culture, we have to look past plenty of concepts and ideas inherited from “vertical” cultures. In Europe, Africa and Asia we see that physical type, territory, language, law, music and cuisine are usually in perfect...
Focus Music, to the rhythm of the street? By Bastien Brun - 11 June 2019 On 21 June, music will take over streets across France for the 38th Fête de la Musique [Music Day], an event now celebrated around the world. But what relationships do musicians have with towns and cities? Are they really musical spaces? Which...
Focus Does concentration leave room for musical diversity? By Stéphane Krasniewski - 27 May 2019 Are Live Nation, AEG, Fimalac et al a convenient bogeyman for professionals concerned about defending their turf, paper tigers that justify the redirection of public funds towards a regional marketing policy or a genuine threat to the expression of...
Focus Europe and culture, diversity facing an identity crisis By Ludovic Thomas - 13 May 2019 With a record number of 33 electoral lists, the European elections show an optimum variety when it comes to the political landscape. While the European Union is going through an unprecedented crisis of values and a quest for meaning, we investigate...
Focus Algeria, soundscape of a popular revolution By Sarah Melloul - 29 April 2019 Every Friday since Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth term in February, tens of thousands of Algerians of all backgrounds and ages have been gathering in protest. From football stadiums to the streets and through social media,...
Focus Afrobeats: watch out for the S! By Benjamin MiNiMuM - 15 April 2019 The great musical styles of the 20th century – blues, jazz, rock, funk, hip hop, techno and their many incarnations – can trace their roots back to Africa. Today the continent has assimilated these trends and suggests a new take that is...
Focus The sound of Brazil By Véronique Mortaigne - 1 April 2019 Brazilian popular music, known as MPB, Musica Popular Brasileira, has had a profound impact on the world. While bossa nova remains the most widely listened to genre in Brazil, the many variants inspired by Brazilian heritage have influenced French...
Focus Migrations, diasporas & world music By Frank Tenaille - 18 March 2019 “Only humans display migratory behaviour; all other species are closely dependent on particular and often restricted ecosystems”. Hervé Le Bras, L’âge des migrations (The Age of Migrations - Not translated in English), Ed. Autrement...
Focus North African and Oriental artists - the rise of female musicians By Fara C - 4 March 2019 North African and Oriental artists - the rise of female musicians As International Women’s Day approaches, the Arabofolies Festival - taking place at the Paris Arab World Institute (AWI) - focuses its attention upon musical trailblazers and poetic...
Focus Six artists take sounds of the world by storm By Frédérique Briard - 15 February 2019 1 - Six artists take sounds of the world by storm Two years ago, Blick Bassy, Flavia Coelho, Pascal Danaë, Naïssam Jalal, Awa Ly and Cheick Tidiane Seck sponsored the launch of the #AuxSonsCitoyens campaign. We meet them again to...
