Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars
Rise & Shine
Cumbancha (www.cumbancha.com)

While many musicians play the role of sufferer without a lot of first hand knowledge on the subject, this remarkable band knows of such things all too well. Displaced by the barbaric civil war that lasted through most of the ‘90s and into the new millennium in their home country, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars are a collective of singers and players who found one another in a refugee camp and began making music as a way of coping with the atrocities they’d witnessed. Their first album, 2006’s Living Like A Refugee, was a healing blend of reggae, Afropop and folkloric sounds with lyrics that were full of biting social commentary and conciliatory beauty. Rise & Shine is a suitable title for the All Stars’ latest, which finds them emerging from their troubled past, conscience intact, ready to explore a bit more in terms of music and perspective. As on the debut, there’s a recurring reggae angle and percussion-heavy African rhythms that jump with the same energy as highlife, soukous or calypso. What’s different is the handy touch of producer Steve Berlin (of Los Lobos fame), who enriches the grooves and gives songs like “Dununya” (a look at both human and divine love) a layer of modern sparkle atop their basic grit. Another plus is the addition of a trombone section on the reggae numbers, playing up the duality of the album having been recorded in both Sierra Leone and New Orleans and giving the Jamaican riddims an additional forward thrust. The band’s knack for satire -evident on the first album’s “Garbage to the Showglass” and this one’s “Goat Smoke Pipe”- remains intact, and “Tamagbondorsu (The Rich Mock the Poor)” shows they can throw down a jam like the best of them. They’ve not forgotten their humble origins, though. Check “Watching All Your Ways,” which was recorded around a campfire in Canada and reminds us that the Creator has got an eye on things good and bad. Rise & Shine is a recommended second effort. -Tom Orr

The band's web site: refugeeallstars-audience.fm

Hear the band live from a session on KEXP Radio:

Looking for More Information? © 2010 RootsWorld. No reproduction of any part of this page or its associated files is permitted without express written permission.