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Star Band de Dakar: Psicodelia Afro​-​Cubana de Senegal

by Star Band de Dakar

supported by
Family Feet
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Family Feet This song sells it for me. Favorite track: Andado.
The Execrable Bede
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The Execrable Bede In the mid-1980s, a Senegalese friend gave me a copy of "Star Band de Dakar, vol 4", which contains "Guajira Ven". From the moment the needle first touched vinyl, i was transfixed, as i am every time i listen to these sides. This re-release—hopefully the first in a series—is essential to the well-being of any sentient creature's soul. Add to that truly revelatory remastering & a bargain price, & there is absolutely no excuse why this release isn't in your collection. Favorite track: Le Lolaye.
Locombio
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Locombio Wow !!! I was praying for those ones to be remastered and reissued, "star band de dakar" was one of the best ones.

I hope this one is just the beginning
more...
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Comes with a PDF of the LP booklet.
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  • Full Digital Discography

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  • Gatefold LP 180-gram Heavyweight Vinyl Album with 12-page 12" Booklet
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This title will be repressed at a later date.

    Remastered in the original mono with 12-page booklet containing an essay on Cubanismo in Senegal, a rare interview with Star Band guitarist Yakhya Fall and vintage photos from his personal collection.

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    EU & Worldwide orders ship from Germany

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    Includes unlimited streaming of Star Band de Dakar: Psicodelia Afro-Cubana de Senegal via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • Star Band de Dakar Silk Card Poster
    Poster/Print + Digital Album

    IN STOCK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

    Gorgeous large size, premium silk stock poster combining new and vintage artwork.

    Size: A3 (297mm x 420mm / 11.5 in x 16.5 in)
    Stock: High Quality 250 gsm Silk Card

    Printed and shipped from the UK.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Star Band de Dakar: Psicodelia Afro-Cubana de Senegal via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Guajira Ven 04:19
2.
Misterioso 04:33
3.
Andado 06:16
4.
Mariama 06:44
5.
6.
Le Lolaye 03:34

about

"Some of the mightiest Senegalese Afro-Cuban tracks the world has ever heard"
-- BBC

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This year, 2019, marks the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, a major shift in history which resonated far and wide — from Indonesia to Senegal. Cuba offered a vision of another world, detached from the harsh exploitative realities of colonial rule and apartheid, and made the betterment of life on the African continent its utmost priority.

“What other country," Nelson Mandela said in Havana in 1991, "can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations to Africa?"

“We are not only a Latin American country,” Fidel Castro proclaimed in a 1975 speech, “we are also an Afro-Latin country... the blood of Africa runs abundantly through our veins.”

For Senegal, importing Cuban culture could achieve the ultimate goal — dignity — and radically change the notion of another — modernity.

Cuban music for Senegalese was the portal to a more just modern world. For Dakar’s youth, with access to a slew of new nightclubs in the 1960s and ‘70s, dancing to Cuban music was a revolutionary act.

But the Afro-Cuban ideal did not resonate entirely in a city as segregated as Dakar, with clear boundaries between the well-lit French quarters and the Medina — “quartiers indigènes” or native quarters.

Cuba’s vision was the Medina’s vision, and Cuban music connected the maligned Medina to a world outside of French domination. "But echoes of Cuban music had already been reverberating along the West African coast for several centuries"* through not only slave trade networks but even the routes of Afro-Caribbean and Senegalese sailors.

In the Medina, in this time of rich, revolutionary thought, Star Band de Dakar was born, the capital's iconic Le Miami nightclub its headquarters. Led by some of Senegal’s most famous singers, like Youssou N’Dour and Laba Sosseh, Star Band achieved the perfect gumbo of Cuban and Senegalese sounds. Changüí, Guajira, Salsa, and Son mingled with cosmic Mbalax guitars, Sabar rhythms, Afro-Latin horns, and Spanish vocals spiced with a Senegalese twang.

With just two microphones and a four-track Revox tape recorder, Ibrahim Kassé, Star Band’s founder and owner of Le Miami, recorded their entire catalog in his nightclub. Each album contained one stand-out Afro-Cuban tune, often covers of Cuban classics or original compositions using the deep, layered sound that had evolved over centuries from the roundtrip journey across the Atlantic. Six of Star Band's most psychedelic Afro-Cuban tracks, an ode to their finest hour, are selected here.

Remastered in the original mono, this album is the soundtrack to a time when Cuban music was the future for 1970s Senegal and commemorates the anniversary when another way — the Cuban way — was possible.

*Richard M. Shain, Roots in Reverse: Cubanismo in 20th Century Senegal

credits

released February 22, 2019

Produced by Ostinato Records
Project Coordination by Janto Djassi
Restoration & Remastering by Mike Graves
Cover Design & Illustration by Lauren O'Neill
Additional Design by Pete 'Piwi' White
Special Thanks to Adamantios Kafetzis (Teranga Beat) & Anne Rasmussen
All tracks licensed courtesy of Alioune Kassé, son of band founder and leader Ibrahim Kassé

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Nominated for a Grammy and the German Records Critics Prize.

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