A while back I bought a big stack of Nigerian highlife 45s. It's a genre I can't profess to know very much about and many of these artists are nigh-ungooglable. Still they sound good. I ripped them into my itunes because 7" vinyl is a frustrating format that will destroy your life with carpal [...]

"This is Africa music," vocalist Kofi Cromwell proclaimed last night, moments after taking DC9's stage with the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International. There was something didactic, maybe even ambassadorial, about the Chicago quintet's hour-long set—the singer often shared nuggets about his band's songs and their Ghanaian roots—but mostly, Cromwell and Co. just wanted the small [...]