Consumer Guide Album

Sam Mangwana: Maria Tebbo [Sterns Africa, 1995]
On two renowned late-'70s albums, seven cuts totaling about an hour, the polyrhythms are far less elaborate than in present-day soukous, the tunes far more direct. The booklet attributes their winning confidence to the vibrant culture of early independence, and though artistic and commercial logic would have led to overdevelopment anyway, the metaphor is evocative. It's that the-world-is-in-front-of-me thing. Think early hip hop--or early Beatles. A−