''Radio Bemba Sound System'' is a

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...

Manu Chao Manu Chao (; born José Manuel Tomás Arturo Chao Ortega on 21 June 1961) is a French-Spanish musician. He sings in French language, French, Spanish language, Spanish, English language, English, Italian language, Italian, Arabic, Catalan language ...

that was released in 2002. It is the accompanying CD to the performer's live

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

'' Babylonia en Guagua'', filmed over two nights (4–5 September) in 2001 during the tour for '' Proxima Estacion: Esperanza''. Many of the songs found on ''Radio Bemba Sound System'', such as "Machine Gun", "Peligro"," Mala Vida","King Kong Five" and "The Monkey", are songs originally recorded by Manu Chao's previous band, Mano Negra. However the arrangements performed with ''Radio Bemba Sound System'' are more

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

ska Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...

-, and

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

-oriented. The album is sequenced and edited in such a way that there is very little audience noise and cheering between the tracks, thus giving the impression of an all-night happy party - which calms down in the penultimate track ("Minha Galera") only to explode again in the last one ("Promiscuity"); the cheering at the end of "Promiscuity" is cut short by a very early fade.

Track listing

# "Intro" – 0:50 # "Bienvenida a Tijuana" – 01:55 # "Machine Gun" – 02:13 # "Por Dónde Saldrá el Sol?" – 02:41 # "Peligro" – 03:09 # "Welcome to Tijuana" – 02:50 # "El Viento" – 02:41 # "Casa Babylon" – 02:34 # "Por el Suelo" – 03:55 # "Blood and Fire" – 02:35 # "EZLN... Para Tod@s Todo..." – 01:41 # "Mr. Bobby" – 03:36 # "Bongo Bong" – 01:05 # "Radio Bemba" – 00:20 # "Qué Pasó Qué Pasó" – 00:54 # "Pinocchio (Viaggio In Groppa Al Tonno)" – 00:45 # "Cahí en la Trampa" – 02:10 # "Clandestino" – 02:59 # "Rumba de Barcelona" – 03:31 # "La Despedida" – 04:02 # " Mala Vida" – 02:26 # "Radio Bemba" – 00:34 # "Qué Pasó Qué Pasó" – 01:10 # "Pinocchio (Viaggio In Groppa Al Tonno)" – 00:45 # "La Primavera" – 03:32 # "The Monkey" – 01:59 # "King Kong Five" – 02:44 # "Minha Galera" – 03:17 # "Promiscuity" – 01:44

Personnel

Radio Bemba Sound System is also the name of Manu Chao's backing band, named for the communication system used in the

Sierra Maestra The Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. The range falls mainly within the Santiago de Cuba and in Granma Provinces. Some view i ...

by the Castro-and-Guevara-led rebels in the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

. *

Vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

and

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

– Manu Chao *

Lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

– Madjid Fahem *

Bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

– Jean Michel Dercourt a.k.a. Gambeat *

Drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

– David Bourguignon *

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

– Gerard Casajus Gaita * Keyboards – Julio García Lobos *Vocals – Bidji a.k.a. Lyricson *

Trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

– Roy Paci *

Trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

– Gianny Salazar Camacho *

Accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

– B-Roy

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control Manu Chao albums 2002 live albums Virgin Records live albums