Caloudji, Prominent Ivorian Coupe Decale DJ in DC This Friday at Nectar Lounge

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African music in DC, Afrobeats, Coupe Decale, Dj Caloudji, hiplife, Ivory Coast, Nectar Lounge

I love west African music, but my tastes are mostly confined to the Anglophone countries (see my posts on Nigerian and Ghanaian shows here in DC).

Accordingly, I’m very excited to expand my horizons this Friday and get a taste of Coupe Decale, the Ivory Coast’s answer to Ghanaian Hiplife and Nigerian Afrobeats.  Nectar Lounge is billing Dj Caloudji as ‘one of the creators of modern couper decaler.’  I have no idea if he’s that instrumental to the genre, but you can listen to his album ‘Sentiment Moko’ for free on Spotify and catch the video for the album’s title track on YouTube.

Nectar Lounge is in Silver Spring on Georgia Avenue, just past the DC line.

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Of Ivorian Reggae in DC & The Nigerian Connection of DC’s Wale

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African reggae, Alpha Blondy, Apartheid is Nazism, Chiddy Bang, Ivory Coast, Nigerian-american entertainers, Wale

Yesterday, The Gifted, the latest studio album of the DC rapper Wale was released.  I did not know until recently that Wale had any African connections, but according to his Wikipedia page, Wale’s parents immigrated to DC from Nigeria about 5 years before he was born.  Wale is a derivative of his given name, Olubowale (For the record, my Nigerian-American musician of choice is Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege of the duo Chiddy Bang).

I have never been a big fan of African reggae (I recall being shocked by the number of people I met in Niger who were fans of the late South African Lucky Dube), although I can occasionally get in the mood for the Zimbabwean Winky D (he has full albums available on Spotify).  However, one of Africa’s great reggae legends, Alpha Blondy of the Ivory Coast, will be performing at the Howard Theatre on July 1.

Alpha Blondy first became exposed to Rastafarian culture as a student in New York city and has exhibited a political conscious throughout his career (one of his first albums, released in 1985, was titled ‘Apartheid is Nazism’).  He was quite instrumental in agitating for peace during the Ivory Coast’s civil war.

If anyone attends the show, let me know.

Not in DC: Reconciliation & Reconstruction for the Ivory Coast

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African elections, Alassane Ouattara, Council on Foreign Relations, International Crisis Group, Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo

Gbagbo shortly after his arrest.

I had promised a post on the absence of the Ivory Coast from the African policy discourse in Washington DC over the weekend.  Fortunately, the snowquester  has allowed me to focus on this.  I returned to the US following two years in Francophone Africa days before the 2010 1^st round election in the Ivory Coast and moved to DC about a month after the contested 2^nd round election, where the Constitutional Court controversially threw out votes for the challenger, Alassane Ouattara, allowing the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, to claim victory.

However, most of the world lined up behind Ouattara; Angola (and to a lesser extent South Africa) being the most notable exception.  A few months later, Gbagbo was forcibly removed from power, largely due to French assistance.

It is parallels to this crisis in events of the past weeks that have drawn me back to the precarious situation in the Ivory Coast.