Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!



Here's a quick post to celebrate the New Year and fulfill a promise. A while back I posted La Tradition en Mouvement by the Ivorian funk/zouk group Woya and pledged I would also make available their first and biggest hit, Kacou Ananzé (African 425.004, 1986). Well, here it is!

I remember not caring for this LP a whole lot when it first came out. Something about synths and especially drum machines just put me off. After listening to it for the first time in at least twenty years I must amend that judgement. Kacou Ananzé is catchy, danceable and captures perfectly the Zouk sound, then sweeping out of the French Antilles and across Africa and the world. It was a deserved best-seller for Woya.

I wasn't able to find out much about the album online, but I did discover tha "Kacou Ananzé" is an illustrious figure in West African folklore, an egotistical spider who is contually led to misfortune by his own hubris and vanity. As "Anansi the Spider" these stories have made their way to the Caribbean and to the United States as "Bre'r Rabbit."

Enjoy Kacou Ananzé, and Bonne Année!

Woya - Kacou Ananzé

Woya - Chèque Sans Provision


Woya - Belinda

Woya - Marguerita


Woya - Oh! Loubard


Woya - Ambiance Facile


Download Kacou Ananzé as a zipped file here.


4 comments:

Matthew Lavoie said...

Happy New Year John. Best Wishes to you and the family for 2018. Thanks again for bringing back Likembe.

Sun Ira said...

Happy New Year. My world is more interesting with you active and blogging. Thanks. BTW, I shared your initial assessment of the Woya record but am more appreciative now.

dial africa said...

Happy New Year and thank you for starting again!

Mouhamadou Falilou Mbacke Ndiaye said...

Happy New Year and thank you for this present. I hope there would be some rare LPs from Ernesto Djedje, Francois Lougah and Rose Ba