Sahel Sounds is the brainchild of Chris Kirkley, a self-described "rogue ethno-musicologist" documenting undiscovered music from the West African Sahel region. The Sahel Sounds blog and vinyl label is probably best known for its highly praised release of Music From Saharan Cellphones — a collection of African music tracks found on cellphone memory cards across the Western Sahara.
For this installment of Africa In Your Earbuds (our African music mixtape series), Sahel Sounds digs up some stellar, fast-paced underground tunes from the countries he works in — mainly Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Northern Nigeria — featuring artists like Tal B, Big Kaana, Sidiki Diabate, Joloko and others.
"While Nigeria and Ghana are getting lots of love, these kids in the Sahel have been piecing together their own regional styles." Kirkley tells us, "While it's all informed by the wider spectrum of popular hip-hop, they maintain local languages and sample rhythms and instruments (like the Balifon inspired Bamako hip-hop), while experimenting with some pretty extreme synth and super energetic bpms. I've collected most of these from MP3 markets, cellphones, Youtube, and Skyrock; they're all pretty serious club bangers."
