An Evening with Afropop Worldwide includes the film Festival in the Desert: The Tent Sessions (Timbuktu, Mali) followed by a concert at The Local with the Mandingo Ambassadors. West African food will be available for purchase by Cafe Drake.
In January, 2003, Afropop’s Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre borrowed two movie cameras and headed to the Malian desert to attend the fourth Festival in the Desert. In the rolling white dunes outside Timbuktu, organizers constructed a sound stage and presented three nights of music from Ali Farka Touré, Oumou Sangaré, Lobi Traoré, Tartit, Lojo, and Tinariwen among others. Intimate daytime performances in tents around the site were captured, and the filmmakers spoke deeply with artists about that era’s newfound peace in northern Mali. It makes for a record of a poignant yet perilous time. (dir. Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow, Mali/USA, 2003, 42 mins.)
Barlow and Eyre will deliver brief remarks before the screening.
Happening at The Local following the screening: The Mandingo Ambassadors, led by veteran Guinean guitarist and maestro Mamady Kouyaté, capture the thrilling sound of Guinea’s famous dance bands of the 1960s and ’70s. Since 2007, the band has hosted Wednesday night residency at Barbes in Brooklyn. Echoing legendary bands of Guinea, like Bembeya Jazz, Horoya Band and Bala et ses Baladins, Kouytaté and his musicians continue to inspire listeners and dancers with the spirit of Conakry, Guinea. A dance set from the Mandingo Ambassadors will cap an evening of celebration and reflection of the West African past.
Peabody Award-winning Afropop Worldwide promotes understanding and enjoyment of contemporary African and diaspora music on public radio, online and social media. Launched by NPR in 1988 (airing locally on the WAMC network since then) and hosted by African broadcast personality Georges Collinet, Afropop was the first nationally distributed broadcast showcase for African music in the U.S. media. The program introduced American listeners to the greats—Youssou N’Dour, Angelique Kidjo, Oumou Sangare, Gilberto Gil, and others and took them to Lagos, Havana, Kinshasa, Cairo, Paris and other cultural capitals.
Co-hosted with The Local.
