Kwela on the BBC

Ten Real Audio 🙁 tracks spanning some fifty years of South African music from 50s kwela to 90s bubblegum. Presented by Andy Kershaw, the flippin’ hypocrite fades each track after only about 30s – in much the same way that Kirsty Young curtailed Andy’s Desert Island Discs – much to his annoyance! Still, there’s some… Continue reading Kwela on the BBC

Unite with the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble

It’s always interesting to hear contemporary interpretations of kwela and to learn more about those who are bringing these sounds to our ears some fifty years after kwela’s heyday. I stumbled upon Buskaid whilst undertaking some search-engine led investigation regarding a long-forgotten question, and what a fortunate turn of events this has been. Buskaid is… Continue reading Unite with the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble

Positively Testcard sign deal with Murdoch!

… by accepting the MySpace Terms and Conditions. Postively Testcard, “South-East London’s premier whistle-driven afroskankabilly instrumental beat combo” emailed me with this scintillating fact (which is, indeed, more news-worthy than today’s other headline story) today. Their follow-up email included the relevant URL too 🙂 When I looked, there were two, complete tunes for our enjoyment… Continue reading Positively Testcard sign deal with Murdoch!

Hello

OK, here we go: Welcome to the blog of the kwela project at www.kwela.co.uk. Take a look at About to find out more. Nothing much else to say now – I just want to start fixing up the blog and I need an initial post to be able to see my changes 😉