Consumer Guide Album

África Negra: Antologia Vol. 2 [Bongo Joe, 2024]
This band's home base is Sao Tomé and Principe, a tiny island nation of barely 200,000 situated 150 miles west of the African mainland that was only settled--with slaves, naturally--after the Portuguese discovered the islands in 1470. One might hope this isolated population managed to develop its own musical style, and in a sense it did, though it may be more accurate to label it a unique amalgam: a gentle genre mix that evokes and/or duplicates the fetching polyrhythms of related African dance musics from Nigeria down to the Congo and tops them off with the sometimes sweet, sometimes mellow vocals of Sergio Fonseca and João Seria, a figure so beloved his 2023 death occasioned nationwide mourning. A-