Tag: Folk Music

For this week’s #PrivateJam, Swiss-Guinean anthropologist and photographer Namsa Leuba—currently in an artist exchange program at Johannesburg’s 12 Decades Art Hotel—selected “The Sun Can’t Compare” by a master of Chicago-style acid house, Larry Heard. Released in 2006, the song’s stripped-down vocals and rhythms (created from scratch, not samples) channels something pure and raw, back to the origins of house. Leuba explains: “From the first note, …

Most bands cross genre lines, but few are as protean as Cape Town-based John Wizards. In their dreamy single “Muizenberg”—named for a sleepy beachside suburb of the Mother City—the band exemplifies their ability to draw on American indie rock, R&B and various styles of music from their home continent. A lingering guitar riff settles over a driving beat rounded out with compressed, airy vocals. Think …

South African vocalist Margaret Singana was discovered while working as a cleaning lady; she would sing as she worked. Singana soared to fame and not even a debilitating stroke in 1980 could stop her, going on to release memorable songs that would earn her the nickname “Lady Africa.” Fellow South African and renown photographer David Goldblatt took this picture of the singer in October 1970, …