This week saw the passing of Don Cornelius. You’ll remember Letta Mbulu was once a guest on his Soul Train. I wondered what a Soul Train show set to an afrobeat would have looked like. YouTube helped:
Also on YouTube, the comments to the new Shabazz Palaces video offered a translation of the Amharic conversation between mother and daughter on their ‘Are you… Can you… Were you? (Felt)’ track:
Letta Mbulu performing “Music Man” on the American TV show, Soul Train, in 1977. (You can hear her husband, and main collaborator, Caiphas Semenya, on the backing track.)
The media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama. Contributors are: Sean Jacobs (he started AIAC), Brett Davidson, Gregory Mann, Will Glass, Neelika Jayawardane, Kathryn Mathers, Marissa Moorman, Lily Saint, Melissa Levin, Dan Moshenberg; Caitlin L. Chandler; Dylan Valley; Abdourahman Waberi; Boima Tucker, Anni Lyngskaer, Sophia Azeb, Tom Devriendt, Loren Lynch, Basia Lewandowska Cummings, Elliot Ross, Orlando Reade and Megan Eardley; Hinda Talhaoui; ‘kola (Bukola Jejeloye); and Mikko Kapanen. Pre-August 2009 posts are archived here.
