Safarini In Transit: Music of African Immigrants

Here is another stellar Smithsonian Folkways release, issued in 2000 and presenting the vibrant music of African immigrants who'd settled in Seattle and Portland and maintained their musical traditions while living in a new society worlds away from their homelands.

The music here is uniformly entertaining and a lot of fun to listen to, with some performers having recorded frequently, like Obo Addy, and others appearing on an album for the first time, but they are all excellent in presenting their diverse contributions.  Addy is the best-known, having released a number of albums on his own and appearing on the Kronos Quartet's Pieces of Africa.

Lora Chiorah-Dye, Kofi Anang, Frank Ulwenya, Wawali Bonane and Yoka Nzenze are among the featured artists and they represent the musical traditions of such disparate parts of the African continent as Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya and the Congo.  There is a great blending here of traditional instruments, rhythms and vocalizing with Western instrumentation, like drum kits, guitar, bass and horns, showing the fusion of music and instruments at its best.

Also very useful (and a main reason why CDs are worth having) are the liner notes, featuring short essays by Diana N'Diaye on African immigrants in America and Jon Kertzer on African musicians in the Pacific Northwest.  These are interesting and informative, along with the detailed discussion of the pieces and the performers that follows.

It is also significant that this recording was put together in collaboration with strong community organizations in Seattle, including Rakumi Arts International, which promotes education about Africa broadly including music, and Jack Straw Productions, an audio arts center founded in the early 1960s and its Artist Support Program was key to the development of Safarini.