Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

Issa Bagayogo: Mali Koura [Six Degrees, 2008]
Like all dance music, this is designed for a big space and bigger speakers--at home, it can dissolve into background music unless you turn it up. But at any volume it will jump out on the very African "Dibi," which is jazzy nevertheless, and the fast-moving "Dunu Kan," its funk and reggae tinges crossed up slyly if not perversely by Bagayogo's herky-jerk flow. Which is to say, Play Loud. Hear cultural exchange evolve into true fusion, even on the loungey "Tcheni Tchemakan" you'll wish he'd never tried. B+