While many labels release varied, excellent portraits of music from the African continent, Numero's project illustrates a particular place and time that laid the foundation for an entire people to build a nation.The concept of “world music” is a dangerous one, rife with traps and pitfalls and often populated by compilation albums that skim the surface of a nation or even an entire continent for easy, digestible musical selections without offering any real depth. Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta is one of Numero's most obsessively assembled artifacts, and given their high standards, that's saying plenty. Contrast this with Dafra Star's fusion of call-and-response Malian folk and Latin-inspired funk in "Sie Koumgolo." Echo del Africa opens disc three with the cooking, Afrobeat-drenched funk of "Gentlemen Doromina." Later, they showcase a driving, Yoruban-cum-Juju pulse and chant in "Yiri Wah." Les Imbattables Leopards move through sweet, tender Afro-soul on "Milaoba" then get salsa-fied on "Nene." This disc also includes the popping dance number "He Ya Wanna" by Ouedraogo Youssef - complete with Stax soul-styled horns - and "Arindo" by Idy-O-Idrissa, a waltz-time R&B ballad whose melody derives from the Sahel folk tradition.
Check Volta Jazz's mind-melting "Mousso Koroba Tike." Fuzzed-up psychedelic wah-wah guitars and rock drums run headlong into highlife, accompanied by polyrhythmic hand drums and souled-out vocal harmonies. Along the way, they encounter and build on Cuban rhythms, rock, and R&B sounds from the Americas. They offer rare tracks illustrating a startling crossroads where Malian and Nigerian melodies and rhythms collide with those of Ghana and Niger. The set includes a disc each by Volta Jazz and Dafra Star. Full-color photos of various recordings adorn some pages, as do complete discographies of important labels. There are biographies of the country's legendary groups Volta Jazz, Dafra Star (led by former - and best - VJ vocalist Coulibaly Tidiani), Echo del Africa, and Les Imbattables Leopards, and interviews. A short note by photographer Sory Sanle offers his story, and is followed by dozens of his quietly stunning black-and-white photos that include studio portraits, promo shots of musicians, and night-time street scenes. The 176-page hardbound book provides an introductory essay with a fine historical overview of colonial, post-colonial, and pre-revolutionary Upper Volta. Revolution is a process, not an event, and this artifact offers one kind of proof. It shines a light on Bobo-Dioulasso's music scene as an explosion of pop culture paved the way for 1983's coup d'etat led by Thomas Sankara (a former jazz musician) to rename the country. Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta is a hefty, handsome box set it's equal parts photo exhibit and musical anthology documenting the landlocked nation (now known as Burkina Faso) during the 1970s.
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