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Youssou N'Dour
© Youri Lenquette

80s World Music Classics


80s World Music Classics

This rich selection of global classics from the 80s was initiated in the basement of the late Charlie Gillett and captures the diverse sounds of a time when “world music” was in its conceptual infancy. Along with Charlie - who chose Youssou N’Dour’s mbalax masterpiece ‘Immigrés’, Joe Arroyo’s sweet ‘Yamulemau’ and the ecstatic Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - we get another 23 cuts divined by a host of influential “world music” players from the UK.

 

There are a brace of tracks here that featured at the pioneering clubs of the day including Dave Hucker’s Sol Y Sombra and the great Brixton institution that was Mambo Inn. Today there’s a club craze for retro 60s and 70s global sounds. Back then the dancefloors were shaking to worldwide pop music made the same decade: 80s tracks like Sahraoui & Fadela’s mighty ‘N’Sel Fik, Samba Mapalanga’s uplifting ‘Malako Disco’, Zouk gem ‘Medikaman Nou Ni’, and Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse’s ‘Jive Soweto’. The African continent is well represented from Khaled in the north to Mahlatini & the Mahotella Queens in the south and we take in Baaba Maal, Eric Agyeman, Salif Keita and Souzy Kasseya’s classic ‘Le Telephone Sonne’ along the way. It’s also a welcome chance to hear the Bhundu Boys again. Today it may feel like African music has only just entered wider consciousness, but the Bhundus were opening for Madonna at Wembley in 1987!

 

During the 80s, the deep sounds of Brazil were not particularly on the “world music” radar but memories of pirate radio (K Jazz) came flooding back with Gilberto Gil’s ‘Todo Menina Baiana’, Sivuca’s cut of Bill Withers’ ‘Aint No Sunshine’ and Tania Maria’s ‘Come With Me’. Kicking off the set with the sublime Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares was a masterstroke and I love the transition that takes us to gazals queen Najma Akhtar and Ofra Haza - the Yemenite chanteuse who was sampled on Eric & Rakim’s ‘Paid In Full’. Alongside the efforts of Charlie Gillett in the 80s respect is also due to NME editor Neil Spencer for forcing this music into the rock mainstream. He and I were fans, we were on a mission and in 1988 the impact of this music prompted us to launch a magazine of “world Jazz Jive” – Straight No Chaser - to promote it. In 2011, the music on ‘When The World Was Young’ sounds as fresh as when I first encountered it. As Tenor Saw says, “Ring The Alarm…”!

 

80s World Music Classics - When The World Was Young (2CD) is out 18 April 2011 on Nascente



Paul Bradshaw / Straight No Chaser


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