Afrika Youtube extravaganzathon

French tecktonik meets Algerian rai meets Ivorian coupe decale meets Guinean Afropop meets Hip Hop in Mokobe's song 'African Tonik'.

What?! They made a new sexier video! (with way better sound) I was originally going to post this video with my commentary, got bored with the idea, but now decided to do it anyway with my comments from the old video b/c im LAZY:


:01 aiight with a french accent.
:09 yeediii yedeeii - tu te rapple? ouiaa but what is this word?? Hes referencing Mohamed Lamines chorus of 'un gaou oran'.
:18 old people schtick. yesssss.
:19 trancy araby technoey noize loop. rai/arab pop/eurobeatttt. I'm sure theres more of this, but where? amazing!
:41 Coupe decale style. yessss. oh wait, I barely recognized him all glossed up, thats DJ ARAFAT.
:50 again, Mohamed Lamine! to me, vocoder = rai so when all this t pain vocoder/autotone love swept up lately ive been sorta hoping rai might surface strongly up somewhere. yesssss. Lamine has some fun rai only vids.
1:05 harp/kora kicks in and Mory Kanté pops up. his voice style is that baba maal / uber mali/ senegal/ guinee/ gambia / the western sahel sound that can be be echoy, sweet and dizzying in mbalax or uber soul gutting in its folksier rootsy deserty "blues" expression (think Xala soundtrack, not Tinawaren) anyway, yesssssssss. Kanté is old school afropop.
1:28 chubby singing kid. very meme - y. very internet. also, he stole kanyes glasses!
1:41 fat people replace old people.
2:28 GAY! yeah we are all in spandex dancing like fools, but were not gay, ok??? see? look men touching oops ew. NOTE: this part is no longer in the new video, looks like somebody said something? or maybe cuz it obnoxiously stopped the flow?
2:37 again that nice noize. thnx to all involved in this techno/trance & hip-hop love affair fad thing.
2:47 fat people replaced by tecktonik lessons! yesss
3:05 um.. who invented this ridiculous urban day glo style? when / where did all that electroclash get hip hop filtered into this aesthetic? everybody mentions it, has anybody written more about it?
3:06 keffeyis attack! weird that its in a "rai" vid. or is it more duh than wow?
3:31 awww drumming kid
4:00 full dance party commences
4:05 again... wtf is Lamine sayinnnnnggg? :( so far I can't find lyrics yet.
4:27 cest ca! (qui a la verite)

It seems like Mokobe is continuing along the lines of his 113 rai'n'b fever work. RIM'K also released a solo album last year with an interestingly titled single "l'Espoir des Favelas", showing shots from across france of it's "favelas" mixed w/ shots of brazil and algeria.

The rai'n'b mixing seems natural, like if everyone in paris is mixing their national musics with hip hop, why not just start blending them all together? He does seem to have his hands in a ton of this years amazing stuff. I recently saw him pop up in a Alex dioufaniokhobaay video, whom AfricaHit.com calls "le bow wow senegalais" :


Alex also shows up in this video with AKON, showing his crazy popularity in senegal, i haven't seen much footage of him there:


Speaking of senegal's music gods, how sweet is Youssou's dramatic intro to his live dvd album? part fantasy, part real, he emerges: