Sahel Sounds is an American record label, based in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, which specializes in

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

from the southern part of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

desert.

Details

Sahel Sounds was founded by Christopher Kirkley, a self-declared "amateur ethnomusicologist", who traveled to Africa in 2008 after hearing a CD by

Afel Bocoum Afel Bocoum (born 1955) is a musician from Mali, noted as a singer and guitarist. He began his career as a member of Ali Farka Touré's group ASCO, and Toure is often regarded as his mentor. Both men come from the town of Niafunke on the River N ...

. Kirkley spent almost two years in Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. When he returned, he started the label, which releases albums frequently recorded by Kirkley in the field. Some of the earliest releases were songs collected from musicians' cellphones, under the title ''Music from Saharan Cellphones''. Problems there included finding out who these artists were so he could get the right permissions and to pay them for their music; he says that the artists received 60% of the proceeds from the first album. One of the artists featured on these compilations was

Mdou Moctar Mahamadou Souleymane (born 1984), known professionally as Mdou Moctar (also M.dou Mouktar), is a Nigerien guitarist, singer and songwriter who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. His music first gained attention through a ...

, whom Kirkley convinced afterward to star in a remake of the Prince film '' Purple Rain''. As an effort to steer clear of cultural appropriation, he claims complete transparency about finances, and divides all profits equally between the group and the label.

Artists

* Ahmedou Ahmed Lowla *

Ahmed Ag Kaedy Ahmed Ag Kaedy (born 1979) is a Malian guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the leader of the group Amanar de Kidal. Originally from Kidal Region, Kidal, he is a member of the nomadic Tuareg people, whose distinct style of rhythm and use of the ...

* DJ Diaki *

Etran de L'Air e-tran was the public transit system for the city of Elk Grove, California and parts of south Sacramento. Public transit in these areas was operated by Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT) until 2005, when E-tran began operation under th ...

Kader Tarhanin Kader may refer to: * ''Kader'' (film), a 2006 Turkish drama film * Kader Group, a toy manufacturer of Hong Kong * Kader Factory for Developed Industries, a defence manufacturer of Egypt People with the given name * Kader Abdolah (born 1954), Ira ...

* Les Filles de Illighadad * Luka Productions * Mamman Sani *

* Tallawit Timbouctou *Hama

Compilations

* ''

Music from Saharan Cellphones ''Music from Saharan Cellphones'' is a compilation album released by Sahel Sounds of different songs by various musicians from Western and Sub-Saharan Africa. Background ''Music from Saharan Cellphones'' contains an assortment of different songs ...

'' * ''Music From Saharan Cellphones, Volume 2'' * '' Music from Saharan WhatsApp''

References

External links

*
Sahel Sounds
on

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

{{Authority control American record labels Desert blues

Details

Artists

Compilations

See also

References

External links