World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love's a Real Thing

1	Minsato le, Mi Dayihome / Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey 3:19
2	Love's a Real Thing / Super Eagles 2:59
3	Keleya / Moussa Doumbia 6:42
4	Ceddo End Title / Manu Dibango 5:09
5	Porry 8:17
6	Guajira Van / No. 1 De No. 1 5:12
7	Better Change Your Mind / William Onyeabor 8:23
8	Allah Wakbarr / Ofo & The Black Company 3:30
9	Awon-Ojise-Oluwa / Gaspar Lawal 6:23
10	Zinabu / Bunzu Sounds 3:20
11	Ifa / Tunji Oyelana & The Blenders 4:59
12	Sanjina / Orchestre Regional de Kayes 8:32

Barnes & Noble

Fela Kuti's '70s Afro-pop wasn't the only funky fusion in town. Across the continent, black American music injected local dance traditions with a taste of bass. These rare tracks from Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, and beyond reveal the influence of soul brothers from James Brown to Jimi Hendrix on the music of the motherland. Of course, this being a Luaka Bop production, one doesn't expect a dusty assessment of cultural interactions, trade routes, and the social mores of Malian discotheques. While indicative of the great tumult across Africa in the late '60s, with liberation movements and wars lighting up the continent, this is fuzzy, freaky stuff: Afro-funk piled on with grunts, howls, piercing wah guitar, and outer-space echo effects. The pidgin English reflected in the title adds another level of loopy strangeness to the set. The highlight, though, has to be the sparse proto-electro-funk of "You Better Change Your Mind," William Oyeabor's plea for international and interracial understanding, which strips down hypnotic African rhythms into a language even the most casual Talking Heads fan will understand. Add a little Cuban flavor, redolent of Senegalese musical tastes during the era of Castro's guerrillas in Angola, and you have a seething pot of pre-"world music," a real multicultural meltdown. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

Love's a Real Thing is an excellent introduction into the wild sound world of West Africa in the '70s. As Ronnie Graham points out in his superb liner notes, the '60s were a time of assimilation for much of the popular music of Africa. Many bands were playing a hybrid of Latin and African music typified by the Congolese rhumba of Franco & OK Jazz. The '70s were a different bag, though, with the heavy electric sounds of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Cream, and others seeping into the consciousness of a new generation of Africans who were also contending with their own emerging sense of identity. The results are raucous, exuberant melting pots of funky soul, psychedelic rock, and honey-sweet Latin horns mixed through the sensibilities of extremely talented African bands on the cusp of developing styles like soukous, mbalax, and Afro-beat. Senegal's Star Band Number One (aka Etoile de Dakar and confusingly billed here as No. 1 de No. 1), were already seasoned veterans by the dawn of the 1970s, and the sound of their "Guajira Van" with its sinewy fuzz guitar solo and talking drum stabs is glorious proto-mbalax. Elsewhere, there are songs more directly inspired by rock and soul. "Allah Wakbarr" by Ofo & the Black Company has a heavy acid rock guitar lead competing with a conga drum for the top of the mix. The title cut, "Love's a Real Thing" by Gambia's Super Eagles, is a gritty organ and electric guitar-driven soul number that could have come out of Memphis' Stax Records. One of the later period numbers, William Onyeabor's "Better Change Your Mind" from 1978, is sophisticated Afro-soul riding on an alien keyboard line. "Keleya" from Mali's Moussa Doumbia is the funkiest of the Afro-beat songs on Love's a Real Thing; its chunky organ solo and James Brown grunts beat out the more laid-back "Ifa" from Tunji Oyelana & the Blenders and "Awon-Ojise-Oluwa" from Nigerian studio veteran Gasper Lawal. There have been other series that have explored Africa in this vibrant and historic period -- the fantastic Ethiopiques, Dakar Sound, and Discotheque discs document Ethiopia, Senegal, and Guinea, respectively -- but what Love's a Real Thing lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth, and the fact that it surveys the whole region rather than a single area makes it a great entry point for them all. Wade Kergan