AND THE PRIZE FOR BEST SINGER IN THE HEMISPHERE GOES TO…
The Telegraph, United Kingdom
April 12 2006
Peter Culshaw reviews the Radio 3 World Music Awards at the Brixton
Academy.
Previous Radio 3 World Music Award winners, from fado singer Marisa
to London-based South Asian vocalist Susheela Raman, will tell you
that winning helped them at a crucial juncture of their careers.
Pakistani artist Sain Zahoor: winner of the Asia Pacific award And the
BBC brand still has serious clout if you are a struggling artist from,
say, Pakistan, as is this year’s Asia Pacific award-winner Sain Zahoor,
actually a little-known artist who captivated the Brixton Academy
with some wonderfully soulful songs in praise of various Sufi saints.
Think too much about these awards, though, and there is something
slightly absurd about someone being the best artist in the category
of Asia Pacific – half the world’s surface – especially as the process
by which the awards are given is rather opaque.
But the awards night, now in its fifth year, does show how vital world
music has become in the cultural landscape, with superb performances
from the prize-winners, including Fanfare Ciocarlia, a delirious gypsy
group from Romania, and the extraordinary, radical grooves of Congo’s
Konono No 1 (scrap-metal percussion, megaphones and thumb piano).
A lone Armenian, Arto Tuncboyaciyan, brought the house down playing
nothing more than a beer bottle and a tambourine. And it would have
taken a heart of stone to begrudge Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple
from Mali, their night of triumph, as they picked up the Africa and
Best Album awards for their bluesy record Dimanche a Bamako after
30 years of struggle. The only question might be why such great pop
artists are not played on Radio 1 or Radio 2.
There were some disappointments among the winners – Souad Massi didn’t
quite convince, Ry Cooder sent a supercilious ditty via video, Nitin
Sawhney only played for a few minutes, and the Club Global category
for DJs needs a rethink (actually, the most vital music in this area
in the last year has been reggaeton from Puerto Rico and Carioca funk
from Rio).
But any carping was swept aside by a well-produced night of mostly
exceptional music. The veteran South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela
presented (along with English roses Verity Sharp and Fiona Talkington
from Radio 3’s Late Junction) and his idealistic comments, such as,
“If you could teach all the politicians music, there would be no war”,
got a mighty cheer from a wildly enthusiastic audience.
However illusory it was, with so many countries and faiths represented,
all of us got a momentary glimpse of potential global harmony.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
