Indie Rock Label Sub Pop Records Will Release Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba’s 'I Speak Fula' in U.S.
After conquering Europe, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba are now moving on to the United States of America. Their debut album Segu Blue had already laid a solid foundation for Bassekou’s reputation with African music fans in the U.S. (where it was released via Out Here Records/ Forced Exposure). This has lead to a sensational U.S. tour with more than 60 dates starting out in February 2010 opening for nine-time Grammy winner Bela Fleck and goes on for three months taking them from New York’s Central Park down to the New Orleans Jazz festival.Just in time for the tour Out Here Records announced a new label partner in the U.S.: Seattle-based indie rock label Sub Pop has now licensed Bassekou Kouyate’s second album I Speak Fula. The album will be the first release on their newly founded sub label Next Ambiance, a collaboration between Sub Pop Records and Jon Kertzer, presenter of the ‘Best Ambiance’ show on Seattle-based public radio station KEXP.


The Havana Cultura live band will celebrate the album release of Havana cultura on November 20th of 2009 at New Inn Yard in London. BBC Radio 1’s Gilles Peterson teamed up with the award-winning Cuban jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca to find the very best up and coming musical talent in Havana. Twelve months in the making, it represents the biggest collection of contemporary Cuban musicians in a single musical initiative since the highly acclaimed Buena Vista Social Club project in 1997.
Zimbabwean band Mokoomba will be performing in Brussels for the first time on the 12th of November 2009 at 19:00 at Excantina. On the 24th of June 2009 Mokoomba, winners of the Music Crossroads IRF 2008 were denied the opportunity to tour Europe after visa bureaucracy forced the cancellation of their 8 country European Summer Tour (a tour that was financially supported by the Swedish International Development Agency, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNESCO).
The year 2009 turned out to be a record year and a successful event for WOMEX 2009. There have now been 15 editions of WOMEX, the World Music Expo, that began with about 200 delegates and has now expanded to over 2700. During that time, this fledgling movement has expanded to become a diverse, multicultural, increasingly popular expression of interest in world culture. And, in the process, WOMEX has become the premier professional event in the international world music calendar.
Planetwize announced the release of ‘The Best of the Black President’ on the Actiontrax music platform, where every album supports a social or environmental project. NextAid, a Planetwize non-profit partner that works with children in Africa who have been orphaned by AIDS, will receive a portion of the proceeds from every digital download from the catalog of Fela Kuti sold on Planetwize.
The UNESCO Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage, chaired by Awadh Ali Saleh Al Musabi (United Arab Emirates), identified The Cantu in paghjella of Corsica an intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding during its recent 2009 session in Abu Dhabi.