Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021 by Kirikou Events Association in Toulouse

The Kirikou Events Association presents its flagship event, the Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021, which gathers many visitors every year.

For 13 years now, Festi’Couleurs has been an artistic and festive event around gender diversity. This free event was born out of the desire to value cultural diversity and rich social diversity in Occitanian / Pyrenean / Mediterranean regions.

Coping with this health and economic crisis that has affected all continents, AKE wishes to renew the social, cultural and living-together bond by organising the 14th edition of Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021. “2021 Africa season in Crossed Cultures” will take place on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th May 2021 at the Exhibition Centre Hall 8.

This festival will showcase the art and cultures around the world. It is an opportunity to discover artists from all walks of life: musicians, singers, actors, authors, painters and dancers, and so on. This gathering makes it possible to enjoy a wide range of animations and to live a collective and festive day.

The programme will be rich and varied: concerts, dance, entertainment, games for youngsters and older ones, parades, humour, a charity raffle… The funds raised during this event will be donated to international solidarity actions. This event will also be an opportunity for AKE to renew its trust with its partners.

You will find below their press book explaining:

• their events’ and festivals’ organised throughout the current year 2020 and the year 2021
• all actions taken with the collected funds during these events and festivals.

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Traditional West African live shows at Festival Rare Talents 2016

Traditional West African Music

First of all, I managed to catch two performances of Traditional West African music bands at Festival Rare Talents.

Secondly, it was the festival’s closing performances on Saturday 28th May 2016 in Montreuil (Paris). I’m glad I didn’t miss them! I truly enjoyed the performances!

Traditional West African BANDs

The support band was Ibrahim Keita and Nankama from Burkina Faso.

The main band was Sékouba Bambino from Guinea. The latter band is composed of:

• Sékouba as lead singer,
• a choir from Mali
• and musicians from Sénégal.

To know more about these respective bands, check their Facebook pages:

https://www.facebook.com/Ibrahim-keita-et-les-nankama-533951590017754/timeline

https://www.facebook.com/SekoubaBambinoDiabate/

Sékouba has a little biography in English here:

http://www.last.fm/music/Sekouba+Bambino/+wiki

FESTIVAL LIVE RECORDINGS 

Finally, I haven’t taken pictures at the event. But don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of videos!

Kuduro music and dance from Angola: origins and evolution

KUDURO

I dug deeper into some cool dance performances and find this interesting music and dance style.

HISTORY

First of all, Kuduro (or Kuduru) is a type of music and dance originally developed in Angola in the 1980s. It is characterized as uptempo, energetic, and danceable.

Secondly, it began in Luanda, Angola in the late 1980s. Initially, producers sampled traditional carnival music like:

• soca and zouk from the Caribbean
• Semba from Angola

Then, they laid this around a fast 4/4 beat.

SIMILAR DANCES

Thirdly, it is similar to the Kizomba rhythm. The lyrics are usually in Portuguese.

For those of you who like urban dances, you will certainly enjoy this dance as well! It has a lot of similarities with new style hip-hop, house.

If you’d like to know more about it, check these articles:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/12/26/167628341/kuduro-the-dance-that-keeps-angola-going

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuduro

KUDURO DANCE CLASSES

For those interested in learning this dance, there are classes in Paris (France) and London (England):

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Every Tuesday with Iris De Brito from 19:30 to 20:30 known for her afro, for her Kizomba and Semba. It is a high energy class that will make you move!

@ The Space Studios/ 31 Falkirk St London N1 6HQ.

IN FRANCE

Every Monday from 20:00 to 21:00 with Nat Borges (NKM) known for his afro-house and kuduro energy! He is one of the dancers from the video I’m sharing with you later in this post :).

@Studio Bleu/ 32 rue du Capitaine Marchal, 75020 Paris (Porte de Bagnolet- metro Gambetta).

KUDURO DANCE VIDEOS

Finally, have a look at this youtube mix of music and dance videos. The first video is the one I liked most. The choreography is very good and the two dancers are also witty/funny!

What do you think of this music? And what about the dance?

How to dance Azonto – tutorials and textual explanations of moves

HOW TO DANCE AZONTO

I have noticed that a few of you enjoyed the previous videos I shared around how to dance Azonto. So I thought you might like to learn a bit more about how to dance on it!

There are a lot of Azonto dance videos out there but not that many tutorials. I have been collecting the ones I found the best ones and hope you will enjoy them. They show you different basic and more intermediate moves.

Finally, this article explains to you how each body part moves to create the azonto dance (second part of the article below the first video):

http://www.afar.com/magazine/how-to-dance-the-azonto

Efya – the Afro ecletic Ghanian Rn’B and soulstress

I came across Efya artist by chance and fell in love with her beautiful music.

Jane Awindor (born April 10, 1987), starts her career under the stage name of ‘Jane’, as one part of the musical duo, Irene and Jane. She is a Ghanaian singer-songwriter, and actress from Kumasi, that becomes then better known by her stage name ‘Efya’. She is the daughter of Nana Adwoa Awindor, a filmmaker and celebrity host of the late television show Greetings From Abroad.

Efya got her first exposure to fame when she participates in the maiden edition of the Stars of the Future talent show. She wins the Best Female Vocal Performance category at the Ghana Music Awards in four succession, beginning in 2011. Moreover, she is applauded for her performance at the 2013 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards.

You can find out about her artist autobiography here.

Finally, want to hear how she sounds? Listen to this play list!

Did you enjoy her music? What’s your favorite song?

Makoma – band from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Makoma is an award-winning Christian, pop, R&B and dance music group originating from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and established in the Netherlands.

They mainly sing in Lingala and in English, but at times also in French, Dutch and German.

Lead singer Nathalie Makoma left the group in 2004 and has her solo career after ending as runner-up during the Dutch Idols 4 in 2007-2008.

If you’d like to know a bit more about the band and Nathalie’s biography, check out this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Makoma

Want to know how the band members look like and what their music sounds like? Click on the below picture and 3 videos (the music for the second video starts at 1 minute).

Fuse ODG Azonto Live Performance in Dublin

Whether you were at the event and want to keep a little souvenir from it, or you have missed it, you’ll be happy to listen to this mixed tape. Fuse ODG, Ghanian musician based in the UK came to give us a performance accompanied by London based DJ Excell at Club Nassau, Dublin 2.

If you’d like more information about this musician, please have a look at the following dedicated wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_ODG

A few other guests sang with him, such as Tejay Tray, Breezy, Victor, Shola.

So, hopefully you will enjoy this soundtrack mixed tape:

Cape Verde: music and dance

Cape Verde, unlike the African continent, has a population with different backgrounds, a different language and culture. Want to know more about it?

The majority of the population is creole (mixed black and white descent). A genetic study revealed that the ancestry of the population in Cape Verde is predominantly European in the male line and West African in the female line; counted together the percentage is 57% African and 43% European (Portuguese origins for the most part).

How does this influence the music and dance you can find on this islands’ archipelago located 570 kilometres (350 miles) off the coast of Western Africa?

Cape Verde music incorporates Portuguese, Caribbean, African, and Brazilian influences.Cape Verde’s quintessential national music is the morna, a melancholy and lyrical song form typically sung in Cape Verdean Creole. The most popular music genre after morna is the coladeira followed by funaná and batuque music.

Dance forms include the soft dance morna, the extreme sensuality of coladeira including the modernized version called Cabo Love (similar to the zouk from Guadeloupe), the Funaná (a sensual mixed Portuguese and African dance), and the Batuque dance.

Want to hear a bit of zouk a and enjoy an energetic Funaná dance?

Check out this awarded zouk artist and a dance routine: