Fuzzy and Heavy, Rock Townships

Four men pose by a cream-colored van with open doors; one holds a guitar. A handwritten sign reading "Heavy Rock Townships" is displayed on the van, and trees are visible in the background.

African rockers. Thus in 1988 the journalist Hélène Lee had entitled her book devoted to the first cantors of African music in globalized mode, even though the term World Music had just been invented to make this new business grow. And this, even if Salif Keïta and Alpha Blondy, to name only two to which this book was devoted, did not actually play rock. Certainly, but at the same time, rock had already largely invaded the continent, which we think of the Malian Boubacar Traoré …