Legends to the revival of African music, five good reasons to go for a ride at the Rio Loco – Liberation festival
This is one of the meetings that launches the festival season. Rio Loco is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, with a programming of the degenerated, composite and cosmopolitan genre. To find yourself there in this maze of multiple tracks, here are five good reasons to go.
When the festival settled in Toulouse, the « World Music » was certainly a source of many profits but Already a concept of inept style. A century has been crossed since, the time has been for decolonization of thoughts and inversion of roles. What is confirmed more than ever with this anniversary edition, which places the young African and Afro-Diasprician guard at the helm like the Global Mix of the Marseillaise soft, which can chain Zouk and Gqom, Ndombolo and Dancehall, like that of Kenyane Coco Em, which brews in turn Kuduro and Kwaito. Just as hybrid, Ugandan Faizal Mostrixx that we discovered with his terrible In my soul Concoctes an Afro-futuristic formula that grabs you by your feet and captures you by your head. So listen to his daring Onions and love. In a more tribal register, no less tripping, Entanty Rayzor poses a flow which echoes the nickname that she awarded: « Naija Thugress », Texto the « Nigerian brute ». We could continue to envy so much Rio Loco opens the eases wide, but if it is necessary to name only two not to be missed: the rai of the third type, self-tuné and total azmuted, of Sami Galbiand the epileptic rhythms as elliptical of the ravage r3ign drops, figurehead of the collective NYEGE NYEGEwho is celebrating his thirty years this year. As a symbol of a renewal at work, here and now.
These three are part of the same story, that of the festival, of which they have already written previous chapters. The elder Salif Keïta has just published a recorded record like at hometo paraphrase his title So kono. Or a soundtrack without artifice, where he often gives himself up alone, sometimes just accompanied by a few strings and percussion. In this stripped formula, the Malian shows himself at the top of his form. It is in a completely different framework that Angelique Kidjo will perform with the Cité des Pitchouns, a creation inspired by the Cité des Minots in Marseille and the Cité des Marmots in Ile-de-France. Or an educational project around choral singing with young people from the neighborhoods, which fits perfectly with Beninese, Unicef ambassador, which will be found the next day with three voices from Brazil: Flavia Coelho, Karla da Silva and Puma Camillê. As for Youssou N’Dour, he will present himself with the Super Star of Dakar, the combo where for more than four decades the Senegalese has given the full measure of his enchanting talent the Mbalax, of which he is the undisputed king.
Tuff Times Never Lastthe title of their second disc reveals more enchanted aftermath. As a prelude to the exit on July 11 of this disc « Exploring solidarity, community, sensuality, childhood, loss and especially perseverance »here is back on stage The Afro-Diasporic Combo Who intends to renew a vision of jazz across the Channel. If we judge the first titles published, of which Closer to methe atmosphere is at the good old funk jazz, that weome Edgeworth, the co-leader of the combo, even brings closer to the old-fashioned hip-hop, Common way. Just like the breakbeat which gives the tempo of Three Piece Suitea title more marked by Afrobeat, revamped without excess. Nothing revolutionary, but still what makes you want to find them live and direct.
This is one of the new voices of a movement which, for several generations now, has resonated its divergence with aesthetic centralism. Under the Linha Imaginot thought by the Fabulous Trobadors, a sound territory whose contours are not drawn on any map even if anchored in an Occitania to be re -enchanted, Anouck plays with borders, evoking just as much the oriental modes as invoking the songs Ladino, in a polyphonic story with three voices. In this new creation, there will be a question of love serenade as well as revolutionary hymns, where the idea of tradition is above all the translation that other worlds are still possible.
At the end of the last century, Lenine gave another version of Brazil to hear. A native of Recife, the singer-songwriter composed a most versatile universe from the traditions of Nordeste. And then, at the dawn of the new millennium, the Spokfrevo Orquestra put the Frevo back on stage, the good old swing in northern version. Twenty-five years later, here they are gathered in an unprecedented creation which before being played the next day in Paris, will be presented in preview in Toulouse, the city of Troubadours.
