As it’s happening since 2001, for ten days in April, London sounds and plays Latino. The responsibility rests on ¡COMO NO! which, 15 years ago, started to organise one of the most chéveres Festivals of the London music scene.
La Linea has indeed brought to the British capital some of the finest, most eclectic and forward-looking Iberian, Caribbean, Latin and South American musicians and projects inspired by the sounds coming from those regions.
The 16th edition of the events will take its first (dance) steps at Oval Space on the 17th of April. In the Hackney venue, Cuban-Iranian project Ariwo will blend Afro-Cuban traditional rhythms with fine-grained Iranian electronica and introduce on stage the acid-house guru A Guy Called Gerald.
Two days later, Ana Moura will bewitch Cadogan Hall’s audience with fado-inspired bittersweet emotions and her kaleidoscopic voice. While on the 21st, Daymé Arocena will bring her soulful Cuban vocal richness to Rich Mix. On the following evening again at Rich Mix, La Yegros will keep her audience under the Argentinian nu-cumbia spell, thanks to her “magnetismo” and smooth grooves.
Then, it will be the turn of the boys starting from Brazilian MC Criolo. He will pay visit to London and Koko on the 24th of April (part of his five-date U.K. tour). Be ready for an outspoken and multifaceted performance, bringing together one of the most representative artists in the hip-hop scene, his cultural and musical wide-ranging inspiration and skilful stage-partners. If this wasn’t enough, he will be introduced by Congolese talent Baloji.
La Linea will decisively move North on the next day, when the referential tex-mex band Calexico will lead its fans and Barbican Hall through dilated and open-wide sound sceneries, desert sands and rolling tumbleweed.
Chile will have the arduous task to bring the Festival to a close and it will surely do it in style. The last two events of La Linea 2016 will be indeed animated by some Chilean poles-apart but intriguing musicians. On the 27thChicho Trujillo will get everyone wild at Camden’s Electric Ballroom thanks to their uptempo beats, energy and indefatigable cumbia vitality. While on the final day of the event (28th of April), Adanovsky & Xavi y Los Imanes will dim down the Rich Mix’s lights with their refined songwriting and soft pop.
We will never get tired to repeat… ¡Que viva La Linea!
During this month of March, the fourth edition of Black History Month Belgium will be taking place through virtual performances at AB & many other venues, including Belgian-Ghanian multi-instrumentalist Esinam and the Afropean slammer Badi. Check blackhistorymonth.be for the full programme. Radio Mukambo offers you Afro-grooves all year long, but…
Best wishes to everyone, up to a much more positive and hopeful year! We start January 2021 with 3 hours of new global sounds, presented by Sebcat & Didi. 5 songs of the day from qawwali to gnawa, Brazilian indigenous activism, Arabic electro and Zanzibari pop. Our albums of the…
Rendez-vous with Lucas for a beginner’s guide to Baloji – the multi-faceted artist from DRC via Belgium making some of the most inventive Afrofuturist music and visuals about. Track List 1. Baloji – Le Reste Du Monde [from Hotel impala, EMI Music Belgium, 2007] 2. Baloji – Congo Eza Ya Biso [from Kinshasa Succursale; Crammed Discs,…
Every month, we bring you a collection of the best world music-related videos. That’s our way to give value to too often overlooked, rich and diverse artistic expressions. Listen with your eyes! Watch the full playlist:
Shakespeare said it all with ‘If music be the food of love, play on’. Music is the blood that runs through the veins of our very best human experiences. Celebration. Expression. Dance. Evolution. Art. Intimacy. Communication. Due to COVID-19 restrictions we have no longer been able to congregate for performance…
Earth Hackney hosted a vibrant show by Chico Trujillo as part of their 20th anniversary European Tour, Mambo Mundial. But this wasn’t an ordinary gig. It set the stage for a small protest against the current Chilean president for the handling of the riots currently engulfing their home country. At 9pm…
At times, we are the first to lose track of how many exciting music events happen in London each month, so we have decided to offer you some sort of “public musical service”, meant for all the locals and passers-by, with the aim of suggesting where to listen to some…
A four piece, Ariwo is made up of: Hammadi Valdes from Cuba on percussion; Oreste Noda; Canadian Jay Phelps (a renowned trumpeter who has played with Hugh Masekela, Wynton Marsalis and Soweto Kinch, among others); and Iranian-born composer/producer Pouya Ehsaei. They specialise in bringing traditional rhythms together into a modern…
Chicano / Mexican rock today is a long list of formidable bands which have produced memorable albums and songs. Calexico, a band from Arizona on LA’s Anti- Records, is such a band – one that has outed itself from the shadow of typical mass-rock to sculpt marvel works. Their new…
This year, we only got a glimpse of the music bonanza offered by the Womad UK weekend. Our stay in Malmesbury consisted of a hit-and-run or a ‘toccata-and-fugue’, in-keeping with the musical topic, and saw us pay a visit to Charlton Park on the last day of the event. Still,…
They came, they played, we danced all night to their wild cumbia vibes! That’s, in a few words, the recap of the short, but intense, London visit of Chico Trujillo. Between one gig and another of their Euro tour, the Chilean band found the time and energy to turn Rich…
Ariwo‘s eponymous EP may only be four tracks long, but the length of the tracks gives it more of an album feel and, indeed, one on an opus level. Bridging an extraordinary cultural and global gap, this quartet is one part Iranian and three parts Cuban and explores the rich…
It happened little more than a year ago. On a quiet April night, London was stormed by a cyclone cumbiero. Camden and the Electric Ballroom were battered by the uptempo rhythms coming from Valparaiso and branded distinctly as Chico Trujillo. The sound of the band from Vila Alemana (a few…
That euphoric swelling an artist feels when they connect with their audience is what rumba musicians describe as ‘Manana’. The purity of this Cuban chemistry was the motivation behind the 2016 Manana//Cuba Festival in Santiago de Cuba, the Manana record label, and subsequently this month’s Barbican gig. Three friends are…
Caribbean societies are often subject to a certain gaze, in search of exotica. The cultural region’s best musicians are those who break with fulfilling the expectations of such a gaze, and produce music rooted in artistry. Daymé Arocena is such a musician, and with Cubafonia, invites us into the realm…
This is the ‘anthology’ of modern Cuban music that embodies the diversity of a new generation of artists beyond the Buena Vista Social Club legacy. This is also the ‘anthology’ that embraces a good number of Afro-Caribbean rhythms – son, salsa, reggaeton, hip-hop, Latin jazz, among many others – linked…
Despite jazz’s being born to warm weather New Orleans, a city full of “elaborate wedding-cake ceilings, wide sliding doors, tall French windows” to quote New Orleans native Truman Capote, the music has always adapted itself to cold weather living pretty well. If a life of surrounding swamps, deltas, briar patches,…
“This is NOT world music, this is OUR music! You can’t put me in a box just because I’m black! You can’t put me in a box because I’m African and I’m proud of what I am! Brighton, if you are with us, raise your finger!” With these few words,…
Usually it would be rude to reveal a woman’s age, but there are always exceptions. Especially when it comes to an impressive young musician, composer, arranger and choir director who, at the age of 24, has already released two albums, toured the world, signed for Gilles Peterson’s label Brownswood Recordings,…
The historical Electric Ballroom in the heart of Camden Town, was indeed a ballroom on April 27th. Few bands are able to make the audience dance from the beginning until the very end, but Chico Trujillo is definitely one of them, with their music making it physically impossible to stay…
Criolo’s UK tour has 6 dates:
– 21st April at Junction 2 (Cambridge)
– 22nd April at The Lantern at Colston Hall (Bristol)
– 23rd April at Belgrave Music Hall (Leeds)
– 24th April at Koko (London)
– 25th April at The Haunt (Brighton)
– 26th April at Band on the Wall (Manchester)
![Album Review: Ariwo – Quasi [MANANA Records; May 2019]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ariwo-quasi-cover-620x620.jpg)
![Album Review: Calexico – The Thread That Keeps Us [City Slang/Anti- Records; January 2018]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/calexico-620x620.jpg)
![Album Review: Ariwo – Ariwo [Manana Records, June 2017]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/a2879113004_16-620x620.jpg)
![Daymé Arocena – Cubafonia [Brownswood Recordings, 10th March 2017]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/dayme-arocena-cubafonia-620x620.jpg)
![Album Review: Gilles Peterson: Havana Cultura Anthology [Brownswood Recordings, 2nd December 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/a2290789108_10-620x620.jpg)
Criolo’s UK tour has 6 dates:
– 21st April at Junction 2 (Cambridge)
– 22nd April at The Lantern at Colston Hall (Bristol)
– 23rd April at Belgrave Music Hall (Leeds)
– 24th April at Koko (London)
– 25th April at The Haunt (Brighton)
– 26th April at Band on the Wall (Manchester)
thanks for the correction and details!