Fucking Cowboys
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Whipping up a frenzy: a band of ruffians.
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Cheerfully describing themselves as a band of ruffians, Gnawa Diffusion are, as the abrasive naming of this album suggests, a bunch of musical chancers that have spent the past 15 years making a most glorious rumpus. Of the same sensibility as the raï-Gypsy-punk Les Négresses Vertes some years ago, the eight-strong Gnawa Diffusion hail from an alternative France – a place where immigrant music sounds and the realities of post-colonial politics collide.
By rights, Fucking Cowboys has much to be angry about. Recorded live in Paris in 2006 at a concert to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their début album, Algeria, the band’s themes – racism, poverty, exclusion – have remained constant throughout. But, as Gnawa Diffusion demonstrate, adversity also has some good tunes. Led by Amazigh Kateb on vocals and guinbri, a kind of lute that is characteristic of North Africa’s gnawa musicians, this is a rock band, albeit one that throws into its mix reggae, raï and ragga when the mood takes it.
Yet for all the accoutrements of the rock act, there’s something unmistakably ancient about what Gnawa Diffusion get up to. ‘Banya’, with its twangy string solo, reaches towards an old type of trance music, while the kerbab castanets favoured by the band – great, dangerously raspy things – whip up a different frenzy. Clearly a band to be caught live to taste the full flavour, the CD release comes with an attached DVD of the gig.
- Product information
- by Gnawa Diffusion
- Publisher
- Uncivilized World
- Product number
- 6132702 CD + DVD
- Product link
- http://www.gnawa-diffusion.com
- Star rating
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
