News
Introducing the April 2025 issue of Songlines, featuring Ichiko Aoba
Ichiko Aoba, Abel Selaocoe, Seu Jorge, Andy Irvine, Cambodian rap, the most anticipated albums of 2025, Gurdjieff Ensemble, Alabaster DePlume and much more
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Features
“Drums are spiritual – however they are used” | Alai K interview
Prescribing some dance floor therapy with the Kenyan-born, Berlin-based ‘musical witchdoctor’
A Beginner's Guide
Bassekou Kouyaté: A Beginner's Guide
Simultaneously innovating and upholding the traditions of the ngoni, Bassekou Kouyaté is a name synonymous with his instrument’s modern sound. Nigel Williamson rounds up his sparkling career
Features
Baaba Maal: Return of the Podor Son
A spokesman for his people and proud champion of West African culture, Katharina Lobeck Kane salutes the Senegalese sensation Baaba Maal.
Features
Postcard from Québec, Canada
Yousif Nur returns to Québec with free-form festivals, First Nations history and presidential hotels on his agenda
Features
Korean singer Jaram Lee on reinterpreting Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea
Jaram Lee dives deep into the story of The Old Man and the Sea for a unique pansori retelling. Christopher Conder reports
Best New Albums
The Best New Albums from Around the World (August 2024)
Introducing outstanding new releases from the Meridian Brothers, Thandiswa Mazwai, The Deep Dark Woods and more
Features
Tinariwen: Royal Sahara Blues at the BBC Proms
Relentless riffs at the ready as original Touareg rock’n’rollers Tinariwen head to London’s Royal Albert Hall. Tim Cumming sizes up their BBC Proms debut…
Features
“How am I going to be a legend?”: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino at 50
Rossella Pinto, one of the original members of Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and her son Mauro Durante, their current bandleader, reflect on the group’s 50-year history of preserving and promoting the popular pizzica music of southern Italy
Features
Harp of Darkness: “If I expose the bin-baja harp, something will have to die”
Patrick Jered ventures into Madhya Pradesh in India to unearth the legendary bin-baja harp, widely considered as a pariah instrument
Features
Folk Archives: Tabla Tarang
The tabla tarang is a set of between 10 and 16 tablas with each tabla tuned to a different note
Features
At home with Ali Farka Touré
To record Ali Farka Touré’s album 'Niafunké', World Circuit took a mobile studio all the way to Mali. Nigel Williamson went to meet Touré for Songlines in the summer of 1999 and found out why his commitments at home meant that the mountain had to go to Mohammed
Features
The great musical genres of the 20th and 21st centuries
The music of the world has been constantly shaped by its wider contexts – from politics to economics and social movements. Here Chris Moss selects the most important genres to have been born across the last 100-plus years
News
Obituary: Toots Hibbert (1942-2020)
The Jamaican reggae legend dies at the age of 77. Garth Carthwright reports
Live reviews
Songlines Encounters Festival 2019 – review
Simon Broughton gives the low-down of all nine concerts from the recent Songlines Encounters Festival at Kings Place in London, May 30-June 2
