The Very Best are a superb group that features the vocal talent of Malawai born Esau Mwamwaya and the production skills of duo Radioclit (Sweden/France). They released a fantasic mixtape quite a while back for free download as promo to this album. The mixtape is the very best (no pun intended!) I’d heard in years so the wait for this album was a tough one…but thankfully it’s here and it’s absolutely fantastic!
The new album is called “Warm Heart Of Africa”.
Check out their myspace below for a few songs and also read the review below that…(below the review is the free download link for the mixtape)
http://www.myspace.com/theverybestmyspace
THE VERY BEST “WARM HEART OF AFRICA” CD REVIEW
"The problem with hearing so much music is it gets harder to be surprised. But this album defies all preconceptions and never settles into a genre that you could name and locate on the shelves or download menus.
The Very Best Warm Heart of Africa (Moshi Moshi) From the minute it starts, there’s an authority to the production, as if it knows what it’s doing and where it’s going. The sounds are well-recorded and neatly balanced, and, just as you start to realise that you don’t understand the words and can’t figure out which country the singer is from, you’ve reached track three and somebody is singing in English. Check the sleevenotes and you find it’s Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, singing impressively high and passionately on the title track, a duet. Quite what he and the other singer are saying is hard to ascertain. Are they celebrating the PLO?
Either way, having established that Warm Heart of Africa is no ordinary record, I go back to the opener, Yalira, and it becomes apparent that there are some words in English on this one, too, with references to Malawi and Bob Marley, but the nationality and style of the music remain unclear. The keyboard on track two (Chalo) plays triplets like on Supertramp’s Dreamer, and the whole song has a retro 80s feel, harking back to Peter Gabriel and Salif Keita. All very impressive, but neither track feels like a proper song. That problem evaporates with the strong melody of the anthemic Warm Heart of Africa, though I’m still baffled by the reference to their “favourite PLO”.
There’s an impression of a band, with a lot of voices on several tracks, on this collaboration between the European production team Radioclit – who used to host a radio show on the internet and who refer to their sound as “ghetto-pop”, combining as it does hip-hop and grime, along with myriad African dance styles – and the Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya. Improbably, they met in Esau’s second-hand shop in east London’s Clapton, where one-half of Radioclit, Frenchman Etienne Tron (his colleague Johan Karlberg is Swedish), had gone to buy a bike. They surrendered to fate and decided to work together.
Warm Heart of Africa is reported to have evolved out of a mixtape sent out to various tastemakers towards the end of last year, when it was listed in several top 10s. Encouraged, Radioclit decided to produce this 13-track album, which, after those first few more-or-less normal songs, switches gear into what could be classified as dance music, although it never surrenders to a cliched four-to-the-floor bass drum. Instead, a variety of backgrounds are laid down for Esau to sing over; often multi-tracked, these sound like the work of a vocal group. On Julia, a squeaky electronic keyboard wails away in the background, while MIA joins the fray on Rain Dance, chanting over a jungle drum track. A string quartet slow things down elegantly on Kada Manja until, finally, a multi-voice choir on Zam’dizko brings Warm Heart of Africa to a standstill. The more I listen, the better it gets, especially towards the end of the album.
The live clips of the Very Best on YouTube suggest an almost chaotic stage presence, and this very easy-on-the-ear debut may inspire many imitators."
Below is the tracklist for the mixtape and below that is a link for it. I’m hoping it still works…
- Kamphopo (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: Architecture In Helsinki - Heart It Races)
- Wena (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & Bleksem, music: DJ Cleo - Wena)
- Tengazako (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: M.I.A - Paper Planes)
- Chikondi (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: Hans Zimmer - True Romance Theme)
- Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (The Very Best Remix) (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: Radioclit & Vampire Weekend)
- Hide And Seek (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & Teki Latex, music: TTC - Batards Sensibles)
- Salota (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya and Blk Jks, music: Cannibal Ox - Life’s Ill)
- Boyz (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, Akon & M.I.A, music: M.I.A -Boyz)
- Sister Betina (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & Mgarimbe, music: Mgarimbe - Sister Betina)
- Birthday (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & The Ruby Suns, music: The Ruby Suns)
- Funa Funa (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: Radioclit)
- Kada Manja (classic version) (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya, music: Radioclit)
- Dinosaur Of The Lost Ark (The Very Best remix) (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & Ben Brewer, music: Bermuda)
- Get it Up (The Very Best Remix) (vocals : Esau Mwamwaya, Santogold, M.I.A & Northern Cree, music: Radioclit)
- Will You Be There (vocals: Esau Mwamwaya & Michael Jackson, music: Michael Jackson - Will You Be There)