Babsy Konate - Tounga - New Cassette 2023 Sahel Sounds Tape - Gao Rap / Electronic / African

Coming from the city of Gao, on the edge of the Saharan desert, Malian producer Baba "Babsy" Konate is one of the key figures in the development of "Gao Rap", a regional genre of modern autotuned Songhoi music.   Tounga is Babsy Konate's debut mixtape, collecting a decade of tracks that merge sweet autotuned vocals, crunchy drum loops and plucked digital harpsichord, in a playful testament to 2000s PC music, with the sample packs of a modest FruityLoops project. The result is familiar yet otherworldly, drawing from an abundance of distinct cultural expression: folkloric takamba from the Songhai, Hausa film soundtracks from Northern Nigeria, Hip Hop from Bamako and Ragga from Niamey.