Emily: The only I (and probably most people) have heard of Ladysmith Black Mambazo is from Mean Girls. Cady is supposed to go to Madison with her parents for a concert and decides to throw her party instead and her mom gets mad and says, "But you love Ladysmith Black Mambazo!" And thus, when we came to this album I had to choose it. However, it seems that Cady made the right choice to skip the concert. Shaka Zulu can best be described as a cappella African folk music. It's certainly an acquired taste. I liked a couple songs, especially the hand-clap love song Hello My Baby, but overall I wasn't really a fan. The songs all kind of sound the same, but their simplicity could perhaps lead to interesting live interpretations and improvisation.
Favorite Tracks: Hello My Baby; Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain; King of Kings
Zack: Every time we’re due to cover a world music
album, I try to send Emily three albums representing vastly different cultures
and musical influences. She almost always chooses the salsa one, to varying
degrees of success. So this time I forced her hand. I picked almost all
African-oriented albums, and it seems to have blown up in my face. I really
disliked this album. It was just so stripped down that I found it boring. I
probably should have been prepared for that, given my aggressive apathy towards
Graceland. But there was just no preparing for how simplistic each song was
going to be. Maybe I’m just uncultured, but I just couldn’t wait to be done and
move on.
Favorite Tracks: King of Kings; Hello My Baby;
Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain
No comments:
Post a Comment