Bio:
While Africa has blessed the world with many recognized female artists, Dobet Gnahoré has proven herself to be a truly special talent. Hailing from Côte d’Ivoire, Dobet is a virtuosic singer, dancer, percussionist, and songwriter who has taken the modern Afropop sounds of her country in exciting new directions. A 2010 GRAMMY winner, Dobet Gnahoré is well - known for her jaw - dropping dance moves, powerful stage presence and richly emotional vocal style.
With her sixth album Couleur, released on the Cumbancha label in 202 1, Gnahoré breaks with her past acoustic styles to create a fiery album filled with danceable grooves, electronic beats, nimble electric guitar lines and catchy melodic hooks. With her latest album, Dobet explores the concept of freedom: The freedom to blend the urban energy of modern Africa with its vibrant ancestral rhythms; The freedom to sing in multiple languages, from the diverse indigenous languages of her native land as well as in French and English, to better convey her optimistic message and reach broader audiences; The freedom to pay tribute to the women of today and tomorrow, to use her words and image to empower a new generation of daring, strong and independent African women.
Couleur was recorded in Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire under the artistic direction of the young beatmaker and producer Tam Sir. Dobet wrote the lyrics and composed the songs with input from Tam Sir and her longtime collaborator Colin La Roche de Féline. 'I want to be able to dance to my music,' asserts Dobet, and with Couleur that mission is definitely accomplished. Upbeat, dynamic, and filled with unstoppable grooves, Couleur is a fun and catchy album exploding with hope and positivity.
Dobet’s father Boni Gnahoré is a master percussionist and artist who co-founded the legendary pan-African performance ensemble and artistic collective Ki - Yi M’bock. Growing up in this creative setting was a utopian artistic experience for Dobet and a rigorous training ground that provided her with the skills in music, dance, theater, fashion and poetry that serve as her foundation to this day.
Dobet signed with the Belgian label and booking agency Contr e Jour in 2003, with which she produced four albums and toured around the world. Dobet’s fifth album Musiki was released in 2017 by the French label La Café. After years of touring, Dobet maintains a strong work ethic, confessing, 'When I’m not traveling, I get a little depressed.' In 2010, Dobet earned further renown when her collaboration with American singer India.Arie on the song 'Pearls' earned them a GRAMMY win for Best Urban/Alternative Performance. That same year, t he UK’s Guardian newspaper crowned her with the 'best performance' accolade at the prestigious WOMAD festival.
Her most recent album, Couleur draws its energy from the creative fire and passion that Dobet brings to all her work. The lyrics are simple and direct, with universal themes such as the power of women, words of motivation and encouragement when your spirits are low, cries for redemption when you don’t live up to your ideals, and struggles with love and jealousy. Couleur solidifies Dobet Gnahoré 's position as one of Africa’s brightest stars and most striking talents.
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"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; recorded "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Thus A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And thus a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
EX TERRA BRASILIS
The Small World Phenomenon
Susan Rogers
Alicia Svigals
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Sodré
Betão Aguiar
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Darius Mans
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX