The death of “world music” is a wonderfully reassuring thing. That is to say, with every year that passes, it becomes less and less possible for media and consumers to bracket together music from outside the US and Europe as a single thing, and easier and easier for us to understand specific talents and currents within global culture for what they are. Obviously the fact I need to even say this means there's a good way to go. But talents like Baloji, the Congolese-born, Belgian-raised singer-songwriter, are blasting away the simplistic distinctions.
As this album kicks off, the cascading guitars and syncopated bounce of the drum patterns in “Glossine (Zombie)” instantly press the buttons that say “this is an African record”. But before the song is half finished, sounds and patterns that are both hip hop and techno have snuck in, with such subtlety and absolute musical logic that the track is cut loose from its continental associations. Ditto on the next track “L'Hiver Indien / Ghetto Mirador”: here not only do we have the black Atlantic connections between Congo, Cuba and Calypso in the guitar arpeggios, but Baloji's rapping joins then dots from the triplets of Memphis and Atlanta hiphop to those riffs. Not in a cultural fusion way, either; rather, just feeling as if all these elements are being put to use for the expression of a singular musical vision.
And as the record goes on, the more it feels like a personal record, and the less the specific elements matter. Even if your French is as rudimentary as mine, the strength of Baloji's expression is such that you get drawn into his storytelling, whether it's over Michael Jackson / Quincy Jones disco funk, low and slow trip hop, Congolese rumba or any combination thereof. And in the last third of the album, though it gets very moody and introspective, you get kept buoyant by the constant interjection of infectious hooks, until the last two tracks of the album pick everything back up in quite spectacular fashion. This is a unique album, brilliantly structured, and not belonging to any continent, any genre, or any style except for Baloji's own.
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