A Ma Zone [Bonus Tracks]

1	Iko-Iko 3:22
2	Rafiki DNA Remix 3:43
3	W'happy Mama 5:16
4	Call Waiting 3:55
5	Gissié 3:43
6	Songe 3:30
7	Kemake 3:07
8	Comment Ça Va 4:28
9	Ya Solo 4:09
10	My Own Zero 4:02
11	M'Toto 2:47
12	Gbo Moto (Station) 3:24
13	'Allo 'Allo 5:08
14	Rafiki Original Mix 4:04

Barnes & Noble

If Brussels-based Zap Mama is a world music band, then the world truly is a ghetto. While longtime fans may bemoan each successive move that Marie Daulne and her tribe of (mostly) female Afropeans make from their original a cappella incarnation, Zap moves at the speed of the world around them. No longer the vocally acrobatic group of dancers in face paint of ZAP MAMA and SABSYLMA, the Zap Mama of A MA ZONE is a street-funky collective directed by Daulne and fully integrated into the world of hip-hop and progressive dance beats. In this fulfillment of the Daulne's multicultural agenda -- what's more universal in '99 than hip-hop?-- dense grooves percolate around the ghostly Pygmy-derived chants and vocal polyphony. Most gratifying, Daulne's breathy voice has developed into a diva-worthy instrument (although more so in French than in her stilted English). Where Zap Mama was once fitting accompaniment for high-school assembly periods and hippie-clothing boutiques, A MA ZONE is music for the night. Sophisticated production turns by the Roots, West Coast DJ This Kid Named Miles, and Speech arc with florescent lights, overheard radios, and the occasional snatch of movie soundtrack. And like the world around them, Zap is rife with compelling contradiction. Marie Daulne's lyrics, riding atop futuristic funk beats, warn against the encroaching technology of cell phones, call waiting, and other devices that save time but make us rush through it. But one listen to "Rafiki," their slinky, insinuating collaboration with the Roots, is enough to convince anyone that Marie's zone is the only place in the world to be. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

Zap Mama's last album was the first one to incorporate instrumental sounds into the group's six-voice a cappella mix; it was also the first to include male voices. On A Ma Zone, group leader Marie Daulne has expanded the exploration of American R&B and hip-hop that she began with Seven. Breakbeats, jazzy upright bass, and turntable manipulation are now a part of the mix -- a mix that was already rich with European and West African influences. "Gissie" draws most deeply on Daulne's Central African Pygmy roots, with its call-and-response structure and her unearthly yodeling; "Rafiki," which opens the album, is a collaboration with Black Thought (of the Roots) that segues beautifully into "W'Happy Mama," on which Daulne shows off her own speed-rap flow (in French, of course). "'Allo 'Allo" and "Call Waiting" both hint at her ongoing obsession with the telephone, an instrument that she seems to find mildly repellent but can't seem to ignore. Everything on this album is both complex and immediately accessible, simultaneously deeply funky and sweetly gentle. Very highly recommended. Rick Anderson