Rather late in the day to be catching up on my Afropop, but am currently listening to Kandia Kouyate's M'Bensara (2002). I've had a longtime kneejerk aversion to what was and may still be referred to as "World Music", a term that has so many despicable connotations for me that it's hard to know where to start. Self-righteous, patronizing twits would make extravagant claims for the authenticity and honesty of music made by people whose names they couldn't pronounce and whose homeland they couldn't find on a map, that was probably ripped out of context to fit on a nice, brightly colored CD to be played as a special treat between the other middle-class we're-into-real-music-you-know standards like Van Morrison and the less wacky works of Tom Waits. "So inspiring, so untouched by the crass modern world. Course, if Thatcher has her way we'll all be put in concentration camps for listening to thing like this. Another stuffed mushroom?" Ah, the 80s....

And I'm always reminded of a couple I knew in the late 80s who visited various countries in Africa and came back with a tantalizing if rather drab looking stack of vinyl. "We asked for the real music, the people's music that was recorded there for the people there, the local music, the workers' music, not the anodyne stuff that's being promoted over here." But they couldn't get through the first LP when they got back home to their hi-fi system. It was real and authentic and relevant to the people who made it but it was also badly recorded and very, very dull. It seemed very likely to me that the record shop employees in Kenya or Mali or wherever they had visited had been quick to realize they finally had the chance to shift those crappy old copies of The Local Maize Pickers Union Chorus Sing "Maize, Oh Maize, It's Great" and Other Favorites Volume 7 that weren't selling.

But I digress. The smug voice of old still niggles in the background: ah yes, proper, heartfelt music, not like that Ting Ting and Santogold nonsense young people listen to today. And there's always the fear that Peter Gabriel might put in an unwanted appearance....