BBC Radio Awards for World Music 2008 - Nominations

[Charlie]

The 2008 nominations:

AFRICA

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (Mali)
Toumani Diabate & Symmetric Orchestra (Mali)
Tinariwen (Mali)
Simphiwe Dana (South Africa)

AMERICAS

Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective (Belize)
Hazmat Modine (USA)
Bajofondo Tango Club (Argentina/Uruguay)
Maria Rita (Brazil)

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

Malouma (Mauritania)
Nass El Ghiwane (Morocco)
Rachid Taha (Algeria)
The Idan Raichel Project (Israel)

ASIA PACIFIC

Anoushka Shankar (India)
Faiz Ali Faiz (Pakistan)
Huun-Huur-Tu (Tuva)
Sa Ding Ding (China)

EUROPE

Manu Chao (France/Spain)
Ojos de Brujo (Spain)
Son de la Frontera (Spain)
Thierry Titi Robin (France)

CULTURE CROSSING

Balkan Beat Box (Israel/USA)
Bole 2 Harlem (USA/Ethiopia)
The Idan Raichel Project (Israel)
Juldeh Camara & Justin Adams (Gambia/Britain)

NEWCOMER

Balkan Beat Box (Israel/USA)
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (Mali)
Mayra Andrade (Cape Verde)
Vieux Farka Touré (Mali)

CLUB GLOBAL

Balkan Beat Box (Israel/USA)
Bajofondo Tango Club (Argentina/Uruguay)
Gaudi-Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Italy/UK/Pakistan)
Transglobal Underground (Britain)

[howard male]

I quick glance through the list suggests to me they pretty much got it right this year.

[Des]

The nominations look a bit tired and predictable to me mainly cos I've heard of most of them and have many CDs by them. It is a bit worrying that I'm kind of 'up to speed' with current world music trends and that there's nothing much else to discover. This is possibly a warning about the current state of health of world music (i.e. either slow-growing or positively wilting on the vine) or that SOTW/fRoots/R3/Womad etc are keeping me on the ball. I hope it is the latter but fear it may be the former situation.

Ho hum. Perhaps Howard was right after all and I should be worried about the image and state of health of world music.....

[Con Murphy]

The nominations look a bit tired and predictable to me mainly cos I've heard of most of them and have many CDs by them. It is a bit worrying that I'm kind of 'up to speed' with current world music trends and that there's nothing much else to discover.

On the other hand, the awards must reward achievement over the past year, and if you cast your mind back 12 months, I wonder how many of the following you were familiar with back then:-

Bassekou Kouyate (in anything other than a 'session' capacity)
Simphiwe Dana
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective
Hazmat Modine
The Idan Raichel Project
Sa Ding Ding
Son de la Frontera
Juldeh Camara
Mayra Andrade
Vieux Farka Touré

OK, there are a few too many repeats in the overall list (once again I find myself wishing for a better European section - 17 Hippies and Selim Sesler would have been nice instead of Titi and Ojos, as much as I love those last two), but I agree with Howard, it looks like a good list on first viewing and a good reflection of all the new discoveries over the past year or so. Given that a major part of the brief for the awards must be to aim outside of our little "world" world, I'd say there's a lot of fresh talent there for potential new converts to chew on.

Although, I must say Club Global's looking a bit redundant these days.

[Chris P]

Didn't the Beeb's staff on the ground -their correspondents and presenters living in different parts of the world, and/or suggestions sent in by listeners to the world service (Charlie's prog' and The Beat), also use to have some say in this ?
As I (incorrectly ?) remember, this used to throw up some new names and fresh faces outside the usual WM media radar ?

[ian russell]

Bajofondo get my vote for the craziest website navigation. you didn't have a hand in its design, did you, Des? ;o)

[Charlie]

Didn't the Beeb's staff on the ground -their correspondents and presenters living in different parts of the world, and/or suggestions sent in by listeners to the world service (Charlie's prog and The Beat), also use to have some say in this ?
As I (incorrectly ?) remember, this used to throw up some new names and fresh faces outside the usual WM media radar ?

Your memory is accurate Chris, and the World Service did have a say in all the regional categories except Europe. But the suggestions did not come from the main World Service programmes (such as those you mention), but from the specialist World Service producers, ie World Service Africa, WS Asia, Americas, Middle East. One name in each category has come from them. Sometimes in the past that has been made clear in the list of nominations but it is not apparent in this one.

The point of the Awards is to honour those who have been successful, artistically, commercially, on record and/or live, rather than pinpointing those who have yet to make their mark. The latter is our job.

As far as Des's comments go, I'm happy to see that most of the people we've championed in this forum have been nominated, while sharing Con's disappointment that 17 Hippies didn't make the European short list. But despite being from Berlin they are not feted at all by Germany world music presenters, while being very successful in France, which is not so strongly represented in terms of delegates at WOMEX. They are still more or less unheard by UK media, as there has been no distribution or promotion here for their latest album.

I would hope that Des' 'complaint' would apply every year, as a new bunch of contenders float to the surface on this forum, are duly honoured, and we go back to the beginning in search of the next lot.

I'm glad to see eight artists from Sound of the World made it onto this year's list, and have a feeling that next year's double CD will be even stronger.

[Chris P]

Frankly it is bleedin scandalous that Feryal Oney, Kardes Turkuler, Aynur, or The Taksim Trio haven't made the nominations for Middle-East (or Europe ?). When is Turkish music going to get some recognition, it's such a rich seam ?

[Philip Ryalls]

Good to see Simphiwe Dana, Andy Palacio, Mayra Andrade and Bassekou Kouyate nominated. They have all put on great shows in London this year. Pity that Estrella Morente is missing; with the delegates in Andalusia as well! Incredible that she is continually overlooked by these awards and Ojos De Brujo get nominated almost every year. And still virtually nothing from South East Asia. Still if the above win, and attend, it should a great awards show.

[Con Murphy]

Frankly it is bleedin scandalous that Feryal Oney, Kardes Turkuler, Aynur, or The Taksim Trio haven't made the nominations for Middle-East (or Europe ?). When is Turkish music going to get some recognition, it's such a rich seam ?

Briefly playing "fantasy" AFWM here, arguably Turkey is more "Middle-Eastern/North African" than Mauritania (West Africa, surely?), so Malouma should move to the Africa category (in place of Toumani, who hasn't released an album this year, but will in 2008, guaranteeing him a place then no doubt), and one of the above (or Selim!) then goes in Middle East/North Africa. There, now we're happy :-)

[Chris P]

Nice reasoning Con, and good point about Toumani, yep lets slip Selim Sesler in after the fact for a notionally more balanced, equitable, exciting and interesting WM awards- Plus he'd play a blistering blinder of a gig at the awards ceremony..............

[Charlie]

Briefly playing "fantasy" AFWM here, arguably Turkey is more "Middle-Eastern/North African" than Mauritania (West Africa, surely?), so Malouma should move to the Africa category (in place of Toumani, who hasn't released an album this year, but will in 2008, guaranteeing him a place then no doubt), and one of the above (or Selim!) then goes in Middle East/North Africa.

Every year that I was on the jury deciding the final winners, such thoughts were aired.

But when has democracy ever resulted in ideal winners?

Considering what happens at other awards behind the scenes, these are as 'transparent' as possible. One thing that the organisers look out for is voting from people with a professional interest in the artist, whether as record label, publisher, agent, etc, and multiple votes from the same organisation. A few votes do get discounted on this basis. It's harder to recognise or disqualify swapped votes, where two companies agree to vote for each other's artists and so avoid detection.

As for the Turkish vote, the Doublemoon label has been an effective presence at WOMEX and this is the first year for a while that Mercan Dede hasn't been among the nominations, but I agree with Chris' suggestions and will be playing some of them over the months ahead. Maybe next year for Turkey?

[Ian A.]

As for the Turkish vote, the Doublemoon label has been an effective presence at WOMEX and this is the first year for a while that Mercan Dede hasn't been among the nominations, but I agree with Chris' suggestions and will be playing some of them over the months ahead. Maybe next year for Turkey?

Doublemoon had Taksim Trio do a superb showcase at Womex this year and were also handing out advances of a new Mercan Dede due in January (haven't burrowed down that far in the "to play" pile yet so can't report on what it's like). More excitingly for UK viewers, there was finally some fruit from a meeting we catalysed at Womex a year ago - Kalan will soon have UK distribution via Proper which means things like Aynur, Feryal Oney, Kardes Turkuler and the very wonderful recent Ozlem Taner album will be much easier to find in the UK shops.

Obviously "I would say that wouldn't I" since I devised the whole voting model in the first place (with input from Charlie and Ben Mandelson) but I agree about the transparency and "as good as we can hope for" theme of Charlie's posting. Womex has one more year in Seville where there are obviously more Spanish delegates than might be otherwise, so I fervently hope that once it moves elsewhere the Europe section of the poll will get rather more pan-Europeanly representative**: not just Turkey but Italy, France, Greece - that whole musically fertile north-Med rim getting a look in. And even England, dammit

** interesting, isn't it, that the Spanish don't suffer from the cultural cringe like the English?: they're very happy accepting the concept that their own local music is included and vote for it enthusiastically whilst most of our local delegates still have that mental block of seeing that like is like.

I must say Club Global's looking a bit redundant these days.

Couldn't agree more, and I'm sure the rest of the guiding panel are bored shitless by my annual suggestion this category gets axed. It's sooooo 20th century, and whereas some imagine it attracts the youth vote, I don't see anybody much under their mid 30s being interested in all that stuff. Frankly, if you want the youth vote, you'd be looking at what's playing in (e.g.) the Dance House at Towersey Folk Festival . . . So, if I ruled the world (rather than a few square feet of Harringay) I'd have Transglobal deservedly win this year - since they virtually invented the idea in the first place and have also made a decent album in the last 12 months, thus nicely rounding it off – and then take Club Global out into a nice meadow off the M25 and administer a silver bullet to the back of it's rapidly balding head . . .

[Eduards_Ozolins]

My favorites this year (or next year :roll: ) are Andy Palacio- song called Baba (Father) is great. I discovered him earlier this year. ; Tinariwen- Thanks to Rob Da Bank for introducing them to me; Manu Chao- Thanks for someone (I can't remember who it was) from WOMAD Forum on internet that you introduced to me with him.
In the meantime, anybody knows why nominees was announced so early ? It's only start of November and I am sure that they can be lots of big discoveries this year too... :?

[Dayna]

Baba was one of my favorites too. That and Sin Precio. They have sort of a haunting sound in them. I wrote something about this somewhere else on here.