Toubab Krewe - Live at the Orange Peel

If you contribute 5 dollars, RootsWorld survives.

If you contribute nothing, that is what will remain.

RootsWorld: Home Page Link RootsWorld: Home Page Link

Toubab Krewe
Live at the Orange Peel
(Upstream)

One of a rising tide of young Anglo musicians playing African music, North Carolina-based Toubab Krewe edges the music toward a rock sound. Though they play several African instruments, such as the kora and the ngoni, the result is still music that sounds like it would be at home at a jam band festival. This live album, in fact, finds them playing in front of an appreciative audience that is undoubtedly up and moving to the danceable guitar-driven grooves.

Most of the songs are updated versions of traditional tunes and generally the album traffics in upbeat, densely percussive songs with muscular beats and a rough sound. Two songs feature spoken word monologues and while they may have been interesting to a live audience ready for a break from frenetic dancing, the lengthy ramblings quickly become tedious on repeated listening and warrant a quick trip to the fast-forward button.

Toubab Krewe, as American exponents of "foreign" music delivered to a domestic audience, successfully find the common ground - that ground being the dancefloor - between African and western music, and make the music exciting for audiences not ordinarily immersed in African music. - Marty Lipp

Hear music at the band's web site: www.toubabkrewe.com
Looking for More Information?

Subscribe

return to rootsworld

© 2009 RootsWorld. No reproduction of any part of this page or its associated files is permitted without express written permission.

 

cd cover

 

RootsWorld depends on your support.
Contribute in any amount
and get our weekly e-newsletter.