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When Americans get a chance to hear live music from Africa, there’s usually a disconnect: we don’t understand the lyrics, we don’t know how a style developed or from what, and in the case of traditional sounds we don’t know the ritual function of the music. Once in a while a performer will offer a brief and necessarily vague bit of background or explanation from the stage, but I rarely feel like my listening experience is as rich as it would be if I knew the full complex context of what I was hearing.
Cover is $8, $5 for students, and all proceeds benefit a fund established by Friends of the Congo to send independent journalists to the most afflicted regions of the country. Also on sale will be a CD compilation called Congo’s Angels, which includes tracks by Irma Thomas, Neko Case, Susan Cowsill, Eliza Gilkyson, Bean, and others. The event begins at 5 PM.
