Wanda Kenya
Wganda Kenya/Kammpala Grupo LP
Vinyl
Genre: Latin
EAN: 8435008864514
Regular price
€28,00
Unit price
per
A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector's item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in the Colombian Picó sound system culture.
Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, peppered with crazy synths, psychedelic guitars and infectious pan-African polyrhythms. Re-released for the first time. When Discos Fuentes released the album "Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo" in 1977, Wganda Kenya's discography had already expanded to include numerous 45 singles and appearances in collections by various artists. The debut album "Africa 5,000", released in 1975, was a long-playing record in the USA and a compilation of various artists in Colombia, which was followed by the self-titled long-player the following year.
The Kammpala Grupo, which bore the title of the album and was involved in three songs, had never appeared before, although it was basically the same studio group as Wganda Kenya. Probably the creation of this short-lived studio group was just a ploy by the label to make it appear that there were more groups playing the kind of exotic Afro tracks favored by the picotero DJs of Colombia's Caribbean coast (particularly in Barranquilla and Cartagena). The record opens with the upbeat "El Gallo Africano", where Sepúlveda's highlife guitar and an authentic-sounding African saxophone, perhaps played by Carlos Piña, interact brilliantly. In reality, it was "Go Call Police Chief" by the successful Nigerian highlife guitarist Chief Oliver Sunday Akanite, also known as Oliver De Coque. Next up is Kammpala Grupo's "La Yuca Rayá", written by Isaac Villanueva in a style he called "son haitiano", but which sounds much more like Zimbabwe Shona mbira music.
"Caimito" (star apple, a tropical fruit) by Wganda Kenya, on the other hand, is a cover version of a relatively well-known Haitian merengue song. Kammpala Grupo then takes us from the French Antilles to the multicultural discotheques of Paris, where a cover version of the Afro-boogie anthem "Black Soul Music" by Black Soul is reworked and renamed "King Kong", perhaps alluding to the remake of the 1976 monster movie of the same name. Side two introduces us to the infectious merengue rebita from Angola with "La riphyta", in which "Paparí", alias Mariano Sepúlveda, takes over the vocals and faithfully imitates the Angolan guitar style.
"La Trompeta Loca" ("The Crazy Trumpet"), probably the craziest track on the album, is an ingenious cover version of "Ye Gbawa Oo Baba (Tribute To Nigeria)" by Joe Mensah from Ghana. As with all their cover versions of African songs, the original is spiced up with some pop sheen, smoother drumming and higher production values, turning it into a powerful, slow-burning dance floor filler. This is followed by one of the strongest original songs of the entire Wganda Kenya project, Mike Char's reggae anthem "El Nativo" with Joe Arroyo on vocals. The record ends with the instrumental "El testamento", a cheerful island song with bright horns, syncopated calypso beats and a chunky cuatro guitar (or ukulele). The original is in the mento genre and is entitled "Sweet meat", written and recorded by Jamaican trumpeter Bobby Ellis.
Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, peppered with crazy synths, psychedelic guitars and infectious pan-African polyrhythms. Re-released for the first time. When Discos Fuentes released the album "Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo" in 1977, Wganda Kenya's discography had already expanded to include numerous 45 singles and appearances in collections by various artists. The debut album "Africa 5,000", released in 1975, was a long-playing record in the USA and a compilation of various artists in Colombia, which was followed by the self-titled long-player the following year.
The Kammpala Grupo, which bore the title of the album and was involved in three songs, had never appeared before, although it was basically the same studio group as Wganda Kenya. Probably the creation of this short-lived studio group was just a ploy by the label to make it appear that there were more groups playing the kind of exotic Afro tracks favored by the picotero DJs of Colombia's Caribbean coast (particularly in Barranquilla and Cartagena). The record opens with the upbeat "El Gallo Africano", where Sepúlveda's highlife guitar and an authentic-sounding African saxophone, perhaps played by Carlos Piña, interact brilliantly. In reality, it was "Go Call Police Chief" by the successful Nigerian highlife guitarist Chief Oliver Sunday Akanite, also known as Oliver De Coque. Next up is Kammpala Grupo's "La Yuca Rayá", written by Isaac Villanueva in a style he called "son haitiano", but which sounds much more like Zimbabwe Shona mbira music.
"Caimito" (star apple, a tropical fruit) by Wganda Kenya, on the other hand, is a cover version of a relatively well-known Haitian merengue song. Kammpala Grupo then takes us from the French Antilles to the multicultural discotheques of Paris, where a cover version of the Afro-boogie anthem "Black Soul Music" by Black Soul is reworked and renamed "King Kong", perhaps alluding to the remake of the 1976 monster movie of the same name. Side two introduces us to the infectious merengue rebita from Angola with "La riphyta", in which "Paparí", alias Mariano Sepúlveda, takes over the vocals and faithfully imitates the Angolan guitar style.
"La Trompeta Loca" ("The Crazy Trumpet"), probably the craziest track on the album, is an ingenious cover version of "Ye Gbawa Oo Baba (Tribute To Nigeria)" by Joe Mensah from Ghana. As with all their cover versions of African songs, the original is spiced up with some pop sheen, smoother drumming and higher production values, turning it into a powerful, slow-burning dance floor filler. This is followed by one of the strongest original songs of the entire Wganda Kenya project, Mike Char's reggae anthem "El Nativo" with Joe Arroyo on vocals. The record ends with the instrumental "El testamento", a cheerful island song with bright horns, syncopated calypso beats and a chunky cuatro guitar (or ukulele). The original is in the mento genre and is entitled "Sweet meat", written and recorded by Jamaican trumpeter Bobby Ellis.
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