A collection of David Byrne’s favourite African artists
While Talking Heads, and David Byrne’s larger catalogue, are often lazily labelled as punk or the ever-ambiguous ‘New Wave’, that doesn’t cut it. Throughout their entire career as a band and long into Byrne’s solo efforts, the musician’s scope of inspiration and influence as been bafflingly wide with seemingly no genre or style left untapped or unappreciated by Byrne. In particular, global sounds and African music often floated into play as one of Byrne’s true musical loves.
“About a month or so ago, I went down a rabbit hole of contemporary African music,” Byrne wrote on his website, which also serves as a kind of personal blog where he shares the music he loves however, he stated that in October 2021, his interest in African music was nothing new.
Way back in 1980, when the band were working on their seminal record Remain In Light, their producer Brian Eno, with his own encyclopedic knowledge of music, introduced them to African sounds. After that revelation, the continent’s vast and varied music landscape inspired the band deeply on that album and beyond, especially the music of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.
“Even though the music didn’t always sound particularly African, it shared that ecstatic communal feeling,” Byrne said of that record and the impact this new inspiration had. Jerry Harrison also said that it became the band’s mission not to white-wash this music but to blend it with their own unique sound to make something new and existing. For Tina Weymouth, it was revelatory as she said, “It influenced us in different ways to realise that things were shifting.”
Decades on from his first interaction with African music, David Byrne remains a huge fan, not just of the legends but of new artists too. His first foray into modern African music was through Nyege Nyege, a Ugandan collective. “I was astounded… Radical electronic sounds, and textures like nothing I’d ever heard!” he said, being blown away by the sound.
He also got into it by hearing African musicians collaborate with big names in pop music. “Nija and others collaborated with Beyonce on a Lion King song, Wiz Kid did a collaboration with Drake AND with H.E.R,” he said. He also highlighted British artists who are the children of African immigrants, like Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz, who bring the sound and energy of their heritage into their music.
To him, the lyrics are just as important as the sound as he sees many new african artists following in the footsteps of their idols. “Following the legacy of Fela, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba and others – quite a few African artists are socially and politically engaged,” he said, highlighting “Valsero in Cameroon, Bobi Wine in Uganda heads a political party.” He praised the new class of musicians for their boldness as she said, “These newer artists are speaking out – singing truth to power, not without some risk and danger to themselves.”
Sharing a 59 song deep playlist of his favourite songs from contemporary African artists, it’s not only proof of Byrne’s love for this music, but a homage to the musical cultures than greatly inspired him.
