African Video Face Melters

ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
edited December 2014 in Strut Central
yesterday I stumbled onto this video:



and was reminded that this youtube channel constantly uploads some insane videos of what I assume are mainly TV appearances by various legendary African musicians. Sometimes I'll scour youtube looking for live footage of Fela, but I'm frustrated because usually it's from the 80s (so it's never his real classic jams) and it's in Europe (shots of skinny eurocrowd not quite dancing). So plaese to share more face melting live videos from Africa.



make with the face-melt, people.

  Comments


  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    Not to hijack the thread.

    But I was watching the Fantastic Man documentary again the other night. Is the video for When the Going Is Smooth & Good real or is that just something the producers put together? If it is, has anyone ever seen it in it's entirety?

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    DOR said:
    Not to hijack the thread.

    But I was watching the Fantastic Man documentary again the other night. Is the video for When the Going Is Smooth & Good real or is that just something the producers put together? If it is, has anyone ever seen it in it's entirety?

    I thought the same thing when I watched that. It looks legit, don't think the producers would've gone through the trouble of making that, and it would be awesome to see that video in its entirety.

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    DOR said:
    Not to hijack the thread.

    But I was watching the Fantastic Man documentary again the other night. Is the video for When the Going Is Smooth & Good real or is that just something the producers put together? If it is, has anyone ever seen it in it's entirety?

    If you haven't noticed already, the "documentary" does not include a single picture or even a single word of an audio interview with Onyeabor. And as with anything else Luaka Bop related, it's corny as hell.

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    both video clips up there are amazing btw.

    my friend Uchenna has once brought a Beta video recorder to Nigeria in the hope of transferring loads of old tv footage onto his computer... sadly most tapes he found were damaged... apparently pretty much every Nigerian EMI record for some period had video clips done, often for each single track on the record only to overdub the tapes when the music seemed outdated. Tapes were expensive...

    I'd invite Uchenna to elaborate himself but the whiff of Dickbreath and co-horts in here is just too offensive, I'm embarrassed to introduce anybody to this board at this point...

  • Ginger Baker playing with a who's who of Nigerian afro rock circa '71


  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    Frank said:
    DOR said:
    Not to hijack the thread.

    But I was watching the Fantastic Man documentary again the other night. Is the video for When the Going Is Smooth & Good real or is that just something the producers put together? If it is, has anyone ever seen it in it's entirety?

    If you haven't noticed already, the "documentary" does not include a single picture or even a single word of an audio interview with Onyeabor. And as with anything else Luaka Bop related, it's corny as hell.

    I think they maybe exaggerate the fact that he's hard to deal with or is some kind of recluse, but doesn't he show up at the very end? And apparently he's giving an interview to the BBC next week.

  • ppadilha said:
    Sometimes I'll scour youtube looking for live footage of Fela, but I'm frustrated because usually it's from the 80s

    Here's an hour and a half of prime era Fela ('78) in excellent quality:



    I think this was the last ever show w/ Africa '70 btw, they left after this because Fela was using all the money to run for president of Nigeria. I was talking with Kofi from Marijata the other day and he said like half the band moved in with him after this in his tiny apartment in Berlin.

  • [I think they maybe exaggerate the fact that he's hard to deal with or is some kind of recluse.

    No, I think that's pretty accurate.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    that Ginger Baker footage is from this wacky film called "Ginger Baker in Africa", which documents his trip by land from Morocco down to Nigeria. It includes cartoon reenactments of run-ins Baker had with the police and also some pretty funny beatnik style voice over. There's some cool footage of Segun Bucknor in there too, and this bit of Fela performing:


  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    but doesn't he show up at the very end?

    Yeah he shows up. But what audio were they playing over top? Audio he recorded for them?



    And I still really hope that music video is real and I get to see it one day in full.

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    Frank said:
    DOR said:
    Not to hijack the thread.

    But I was watching the Fantastic Man documentary again the other night. Is the video for When the Going Is Smooth & Good real or is that just something the producers put together? If it is, has anyone ever seen it in it's entirety?

    If you haven't noticed already, the "documentary" does not include a single picture or even a single word of an audio interview with Onyeabor. And as with anything else Luaka Bop related, it's corny as hell.

    I think they maybe exaggerate the fact that he's hard to deal with or is some kind of recluse, but doesn't he show up at the very end? And apparently he's giving an interview to the BBC next week.

    I think they tried to turn his refusal to be on camera or otherwise help the promotion of the records into a schtick by trying to create a mystery around him. Onyeabor is easy to find and he's not at all a recluse, he just does not want anything to do with his old "secular" music. He's chased one of my buyers off his grounds brandishing a handgun while selling his remainder of Good Name stock copies to someone I sent to his house a few months later.

    There are also different accounts of what his personal musical input. Some sources say that most if not all of his stuff was played by hired musicians... from what I heard about him, I quickly abandoned any ideas of re-issuing his stuff many years ago... there's way too much good music out there that was made by genuinely nice people...

    The '78 Fela show is amazing... this was the last time he played with the Africa 70 cause instead of returning with him to Nigeria, the band defected and asked for political asylum. To me nothing he did after ever came close to the pre'78 stuff.

    Funny side note about the Ginger Baker in Africa footage: Baker asked for all footage with T- Mack in the picture to be removed cause he's light skinned (Swiss mother) and Baker wanted to be the sole non-100%-African in the picture in order to not spoil the exoticism of it all...

  • That Fela vid was fantastic. This thread is a breath of fresh air...

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    These probably don't qualify as facemelters but these are my favorite contemporary acts from West Africa.

    King Ayisoba from Northern Ghana:


    H2O Assouka from Benin:

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    the above mentioned Segun Bucknor live clip from Ginger Baker in Africa:

  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    Les Amazones de la Guinée. I got to see them live back in 2007 (albeit not this specific show), amazing:


  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    this one won't embed but check it out, it's totally nuts... makes me want to move back to Guinea:


  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    Frank said:
    Les Amazones de la Guinée. I got to see them live back in 2007 (albeit not this specific show), amazing:


    :shreddin_it:

    it's a cover of this song, is it a local classic?


  • FrankFrank 2,370 Posts
    Samba was a regional hit and then there's also this version from Cote d'Ivoire:



    Balla et ses Balladins was probably first... wouldn't be surprised if there were more versions.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    one contemporary group I really like is Kasai All-Stars from DR Congo. The Congotronics 2 cd/dvd that features them also has this hypnotic video:



    I'm basically a sucker for anything that has that trance (NOT RAVE-R) quality

  • maybe not a facemelter, but I love this tune






    Here is a really nice doc about music in Zimbabwe. Def some face-melting moments.



  • YemskyYemsky 707 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    yesterday I stumbled onto this video:



    make with the face-melt, people.


    I only now clicked on this post and the linked video. Boom. Memories!!! How could you forget these hats - or the music!?!?!
    I saw Zani Diabate live in the 80s in my hometown of Hannover, Germany: Unbelievable concert. I had seen King Sunny Ade, Thomas Mapfumo and Etoile De Dakar with Youssou N'Dour but this beat them all. I was so enthusiastic afterwards, that I wrote a letter to Black Music / Blues & Soul where Chris Stapleton gave me a name-check in his Afro Heat column later on when recommending Super Djata.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    I like the song and the use of green-screen trips me out:


  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    BUMP


  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    this is also awesome even though it cuts off halfway through the song


  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
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