Friday, July 25, 2025

Afropop Worldwide On Air This Week: Blues Reflections and its West African origin

Afropop Worldwide

July 24th, 2025

Blues
Reflections

An archival exploration of the profound conversation between the American blues tradition and its West African origins.

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Blues musicians

Ali Farka Touré, 1990

In the latest episode of Afropop, we celebrate the blues—viewed by many as quintessentially American heritage, by others as a severed chain to lost African history. We revisited pivotal interviews from our archives exploring the genre's African roots, a concept that seems obvious to some but grows complicated upon closer examination. While scholars and historians debate the details, for artists it's about feeling. Today, musicians from the U.S. and Africa are retracing these cultural paths, creating fresh sounds that honor both past and present.

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Afropop Worldwide
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Brooklyn, NY 11238

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