Khaira Arby – Ya Rassoul

Face A

Ya Rassoul
Tombouctou
Amandiath
Sayidi
Koti-Koti

Face B

Ehe Sourgou
Sourgou
Lili Yore*
Boibini
Aigna

This is the best music I know of in the Sahel. Khaira Arby is enormously popular in Timbuktu, where you will hear this tape playing out of a ghetto blaster in a shop or the cassette deck of a car. This is not “world music,” this is just plain old awesome music that straddles the linguistic and cultural divide of a place like Timbuktu. Arby sings in Tamashek and Sonrai languages, among others, appealing to two of the main groups living in Timbuktu, the Tuareg and Songhai.

Sorry to be out of the game for a while… perhaps this tape makes up for the wait? Seriously, this is one of my top three favorites. Period.

* I especially like this one.

ED NOTE–I realized later that these side are switched around with the track titles. sorry about that… BUY THE RECORD instead.