Saturday, 2/19/11
Listen yesterday; go today.
Burkina Faso: Life & Music in West Africa (2007)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
According to the guidebook, Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, but in our experience its people seemed confident and proud of their culture in this 50th anniversary of independence from French colonial rule. Deep red dust carpets the country, kicked up by the mopeds that crisscross the rutted ground and buy markets lining nearly every street. Yet through the coating of dust the people always look impeccably elegant.
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In Burkina, the sun drops away at 7 p.m. sharp. When we returned for the concert, we saw scores of parked mopeds glistening under the full moon., and hundreds of people queuing outside the high crumbling walls enclosing the open air theatre. Inside, beyond the light cast rom the state, a huge crowd bustled quietly in the darkness otherwise shrouding the vast auditorium. Families with children of all ages filled the wooden benches, and here too traders plied bronze jewellery and leather goods around the perimeter.
—Trevor Watts, The Wire, 3/11
music clip of the day 