Run for IVU Playlist 2

Run for IVU Virtual Challenge
Spotify Playlist 2

1. Pay me (Friday Night) – by Koo Nimo (Ghana)
   Koo Nimo is a leading folk musician of Palm wine music or Highlife music from Ghana. Koo Nimo first received national acclaim through the formation of the Addadam Agofomma ensemble. Many of his songs tell traditional stories and are sung in the Twi language.  Along with one or two guitars and vocals, the traditional Ashanti palm wine ensemble consists of traditional instruments of West Africa, including the apentemma and the donno, the frikyiwa (metal castanet), the prempensua (rhumba box), the ntorwa (hollow gourd rattle with beads or seeds woven around it on a net), and the nnawuta (consisting of two iron bells that provide the key rhythmic pattern) or dawuro (banana-shaped bell).

2. Holding Hands in Public – by Ria Boss  (Ghana)
   This soulful Accra based musician is a singer songwriter and producer. Ria Boss’ superpower is her voice, a strong smoky deeply confessional tone.  Ria Boss found her foot in music, after taking on piano lessons in her childhood, but her career didn’t take off for a few years, owing to her shyness.  Back in 2018, the soulful artist embarked on a grand endeavor to release an EP every week for several months for a project she coined #THANKGODFORRIA.  Her debut EP, Find Your Free is an open love letter to African women to embrace themselves and their individualities as she expands on that message of finding happiness by finding yourself.

3. Namuganyi – by Elly Wamala (Uganda)
   Elly Wamala was one of Uganda’s first musicians to release a recorded song and have it become a commercial hit in the 1950s when he released Nabutono.  Wamala dropped out of school and started to work at a Kampala music store and later as a resident artiste with Opel Tom Tom, a recording studio in Kampala’s industrial area. When Opel Tom Tom closed, Wamala moved to Nairobi where he became a resident guitarist at a commercial recording studio, HiFi. He was picked to lead the Sportsman Cha Cha band, which was sponsored to tour East Africa, promoting Sportsman cigarettes. And in the 1950s, he penned his first song, the playful love song, Nabutono, the first kadongo kamu song to be recorded on vinyl.

4. Bour Sine – by Le Sourouba de Louga (Senegal)
   Drawn from rare and unheard recordings made in Dakar’s fertile 1960s – 1970s period, the band touches on the sounds of high life, funk, and mbalax a healthy dose of US soul. The music of Senegal in this era was electrified and funky, with strong Reggae influences. Typical of African popular music in the ‘70s, complex beats and multiple layers of guitars, vocals and horns are heard throughout.

5. Senegal Fast Food – by Amadou & Mariam (Senegal)
   Amadou and Mariam met in Mali and started making music together. Mariam had grown up singing at weddings and traditional festivals while the teenaged Amadou had cut his teeth as a guitarist in Les Ambassadeurs, one of West Africa’s hottest and most legendary bands. Both are blind and they met in 1977 at the Institute for the Blind in Bamako (capital of Mali), where they were both studying Braille and found themselves  performing together in the institute’s Eclipse Orchestra. They married in 1980, the same year they played their first official concert together as a duo.

6. Hi Babe –by Ngozi Family (Zambia)
   Prominent in the Zamrock music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, the Ngozi Family is described as a combination of traditional African music with psychedelic rock, garage rock, hard rock, blues and funk some artists also pulled from acid rock, heavy metal and folk music. It has been described as the combined sound of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.

7. Rwanda Rwiza (Beautiful Rwanda) – by Jean Paul Samputu (Rwanda)
   Jean-Paul Samputu is a singer, songwriter, and musician from Rwanda. He has established himself as one of the most prominent African artists on the world stage. A winner of the prestigious Kora Award (the “African Grammy”) in 2003, Samputu travels the world as a cultural ambassador for Rwanda, bringing to his audiences not only traditional African singing, dancing, and drumming, but also a message of peace and reconciliation. A survivor of the genocide in Rwanda, Samputu takes us to the most positive place of humanity through his spirit and graciousness.

8. Tot le Matin – by Gaël Faye (Burundi)
   Gaël Faye is a Rwandan-French singer, rapper, and writer. He was born in Bujumbura, Burundi of a French father and Rwandan mother. He emigrated in France at the age of 13 escaping from the Burundian civil war. He wrote a book about it, Small Country (Petit Pays), a semi-biographical book. It was first published in France in August 2016, and has since been translated into 36 languages.

9. Munzanire – by Amabano (Burundi)
   Burundi’s Most Popular 1980s Group, Amabano, signed with the Ministry of Information to become the state-sponsored house band of the national radio station. Their musical base of funk, soul and rumba, sung in a multitude of languages, absorbed a lot of influence from Burundian traditional music, and the Kirundi language would be heard in many of their songs.

10. Munonditaura – by Pengaudzoke (Zimbabwe)
    Pengaudzoke is one of the most celebrated music groups to have emerged out of Zimbabwe. The group was co-founded by two brothers Daiton Somanje and Josphat Somanje around 1985 when they released their first singles. Coming from very humble beginnings, the group grew to become one of the most prominent sungura outfits in the country. The group recorded an estimated 28 albums, with each one of them performing a number one hit on the music charts. The brothers unfortunately parted ways soon after the release of one of their timeless hits “Tsaona” over allegations of witchcraft and disagreements over the use of revenue.

11. Mudzimu Ndiringe – by Simon Chimbetu (Zimbabwe)
    Simon Chimbetu was a Zimbabwean guitarist, vocalist and composer. He was the founding member of his band Orchestra Dendera Kings. He was known by many stage names, including “Chopper, “Mr Viscose” “Cellular”, “Simomo” and “Mukoma Sam.”  During the Rhodesian Bush War, Chimbetu went to Tanzania to join the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which employed him as an entertainer for its guerrillas in exile. What also distinguished Simon from many other sungura/museve artists at this time and throughout his career was that his music focused on contemporary social and political topics.

12. Minii Gar – by Monta Rap (Mongolia)
    Part of the exploding Hip-Hop scene in Mongolia, Monta Rap, is part of a group of young musicians that is changing the landscape of music in Mongolia.  Hip hop has now become so big in Mongolia, that politicians sometimes even try to buy up rappers to bolster their political campaigns.

13. Chimii Nudeer – by Vandebo, Anir (Mongolia)
    Vandebo is a Mongolian hip hop duo from Darkhan, Mongolia. The band is formed by two friends, Vande and Ebo. In December 2018, the band released their debut album “Munkhud21”. After their album release, the band struggled for their second album. In June, 2019 Vandebo released their hit single “Unana” featuring with Enerel, Belucci.

14. Mua Gat Moi – by Hoang Oanh, Saigon Supersound (Vietnam)
    Saigon Super Sound is a band from the musical era of Vietnam that was almost lost during the period between 1965 and 1975, the so-called “Golden Era” where – under difficult circumstances – a lively pop culture had developed.

15. I Want You Back- Esso Trinidad Steel Band (Trinidad)
    The Esso Trinidad Steel Band was a steel band from Trinidad, active from 1942 to 1976. The group began in 1942 as the Tripoli Steel Band, named after a lyric in the United States Marines’ Hymn. In 1951, the group came under the leadership of Hugh Borde, who directed the ensemble to greater technical skill and established them as contenders in local Carnival competitions. In 1964, the group won the Steel Band Music Festival. The following year, the petroleum corporation Esso began sponsoring the group, who renamed themselves the Esso Trinidad Steel Band. Under Esso’s sponsorship, the group grew to 28 members and was outfitted with uniforms and new instruments, and in 1967 they appeared at the Montreal Expo.  This is an amazing cover of the Jackson 5 song  I Want You Back.

16. Welcome to Jamrock – by Damain Marley (Jamaica)
    Damian Robert Nesta “Jr. Gong” Marley is a Jamaican DJ, singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer and the youngest son of reggae singer Bob Marley. He was two years old when his father died; he is the only child born to Marley and Cindy Breakspeare, Miss World 1976.  Marley has described his music as “dancehall and reggae. With the backing of his father’s label, Tuff Gong, he released his 1996 debut album Mr. Marley, which surprised many who were unaccustomed to hearing a Marley deejaying rather than singing.

17. Feel Like Jumping – by Marcia Griffiths (Jamaica)
    Marcia Llyneth Griffiths  is a Jamaican singer.  Born in West Kingston, Jamaica, Griffiths started her career in 1964, performing on stage with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires  Griffiths blazed a trail for women in reggae. Her 1989 solo hit Electric Boogie reached number 51 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remains the all-time highest-selling single by a female reggae singer.  Marcia Griffiths recorded all the back-up vocals on Bob Marley’s landmark album Exodus.

18. Papa Legba – by Moonlight Benjamin (Haiti)
    Moonlight Benjamin describes her music as a blend of voodoo and rock’n’roll. Born in Haiti, she is both a voodoo priestess and a powerful singer-songwriter with an impressive vocal range. Benjamin sounds thrilling, thoughtful and, at times, downright spooky. Her mother died giving birth to her, and Benjamin was brought up singing hymns in a church orphanage. Later, in Port-au-Prince, she met voodoo musicians and listened to western rock, then moved to France, where she studied jazz. In 2009, she travelled back to Haiti for a voodoo initiation.

19. Lut Gaye – Jubin Nautiyal (India)
    Jubin Nautiyal is an Indian singer who early in his career, sang many songs, including several hit songs, for Hindi films. He has also recorded songs for films in various Indian languages.  This Bollywood song is a  romantic ballad on unrequited, unfulfilled love.  The song attempts to spin a narrative of great love and sacrifice about a Mumbai cop who unwittingly falls for the bride he rescues.

20. Descarga Garifuna – by Julio Zelaya (Honduras)
    Julio Zelaya is one of the most important contemporary composers in Central America. He plays original compositions using the unique Honduran garifuna rhythms and exposes them to the musical complexities of other African rooted music such as jazz, Caribbean, Brazilian and world.  Most of the songs have been inspired by real experiences in the Honduran Caribbean ocean