Sold Date: August 28, 2014
Start Date: July 3, 2014
Final Price: $22.50 $20.00 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 531
Buyer Feedback: 0

Brief history: These come direct from the defunct African Music Gallery, a specialty record store that operated in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s. Long shuttered, the store’s leftover inventory disappeared off the grid … until now. Another Man’s Vinyl located it and is now offering up this small sampler lot. These records were never sealed, come direct from France via D.C., and are unplayed.

These were indiscriminately stored over the past couple decades. Mixed in amidst a ginormous pile of 10,000 other records, the jackets show some wear, mainly in the form of small creases and/or cover laminate peeling. Covers get a VG grade, as a result. The vinyl, on the other hand, remains pristine, spotless, shiny and free of background noise. They all LOOK MINT and play without any issues at all -- just like brand new! -- but because they are unsealed, conservative grades of NM apply to the vinyl.

These are awesome sounds, and rare. All are in the soukous/rumba/zouk style, a contemporary guitar-based popular music most akin to reggae, soca and Afro-Cuban jazz-funk. Very Caribbean, but with an African slant. And lengthy songs, usually 7-10 minutes long. Typically 4 songs per record, but running times exceed 30 minutes in every case. Very rhythmic and repetitive modern tribal, with chanted vocals and gorgeous guitar-work. CLEAN guitars, mind-blowing guitars ... tight and fast-paced and sparkling.

Nimon Toki Lala and Nyboma et Bovi LPs are paired in this set, and offer a unique example of female-led soukous. The other LPs -- by Zao, Mensy, and Marcus Mvouka -- provide a more traditional male-led combo, and rock it out.

(Just check out Zao, man. Posing with his guitar. Dude means business.The title translates to ‘War Veteran,’ so you know he’s not fooling around.)

Recommended for fans of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” or David Byrne’s pan-global solo music, or Grateful Dead heads into long grooves and jammy chants, or reggae rastafarians into blissy tropical rhythms, or modern hipsters digging Vampire Weekend… These will will work for you, guaranteed!