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Pape Fall & L'African Salsa … bringing a Senegalese flavour to Cuba
Song of the Day: Transitioning recently between Africa and Cuba, today's choice is a fusion of the two – the classic sound but played by the Senegalese singer and sax player from his 1995 album, Ke Jaraxam, which came out on cassette
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Cesária Evora
Song of the Day: Moving now to and artist from Cape Verde and one of the most beautiful songs, from the singer's her 1992 album Miss Perfumado
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Kora Jazz Trio
Song of the Day: A Saturday special as we compare three versions of a song made famous by the Cuban ensemble, but here with an African and jazz twist, featuring the kora, piano and more with other musicians
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Sona Jarbarteh
Song of the Day: Moving from Ivory Coast and Mali to The Gambia, and the singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer who hails from a long line of Griot kora players with a song to mark her country's 50th independence anniversary in 2015
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Fatoumata Diawara
Song of the Day: After a series of longer established African stars, a more contemporary one – the Ivory Coast born singer songwriter, from her 2018 album, Fenfo (Something To Say), with a song about mass migration
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Salif Keita
Song of the Day: After Senegal's Youssou N'Dour, let's hand over to yet another giant of African music, again from Mali, the royal 'Golden Voice', from his 2002 album Moffou
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Youssou N'Dour
Song of the Day: Moving from Morocco, and another huge figure in African music and the style of mbalax, which mixes jazz, soul, Latin, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of Senegal
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Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui
Song of the Day: From the deserts of Mali with Tuareg band Tinariwen to the Sahara further north, and the sublime singer Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui from her 2013 album, Soul of Morocco
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Tinariwen
Song of the Day: After Ali Farka Touré's African-origin-blues crossover, another fork the musical track, from those Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert in northern Mali, from their 2014 album Emmaar
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Ali Farka Touré (right) with Toumani Diabaté
Song of the Day: After Nigeria's Fela Kuti, let's move over to Mali, and enjoy some of the finest work from great multi-instrumentalist whose final album, recorded in 2004, marked a crossroads between African music and blues
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That's the Fela
Song of the Day: As the heatwave continues let's enjoy a double from Nigeria's prolific genius, one about our most precious resource, the other in relation to a police confrontation involving a planted cannabis joint
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Frankie Smith and friends twirl the rope
Song of the Day: After Malcolm McLaren and echoes of The Boyoyo Boys, another skipping-related number, a 1981 funk hit less about the music, more notable about the first use of "izzle" hip hop stylings
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The single cover of Double Dutch
Song of the Day: From yesterday's song about whooping and clapping by Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens, a nimble act of skipping – and controversial sampling – by the Sex Pistols impresario from 1983
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Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens
Song of the Day: Further joyful, shining beauty from the continent of Africa, this time from Johannesburg, and one of many great numbers by the supergroup, this song all about 'whooping and clapping'
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The Four Brothers' Makorokoto album cover
Song of the Day: Moving from Nigeria's funk master William Onyeabor, one of Zimbabwe's greatest bands, employing the 'jit' African electric guitar sound of clean, golden-glinting riffs and vocal harmonies
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A Nigerian billboard of the last William Onyeabor release
Song of the Day: From one fantastic man – Nelson Mandela – to another, this time from Nigeria, the enigmatic 1970s and 80s electro-funk maestro who was a true original, spreading joy and positive politics in his music
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Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013
Song of the Day: At a time when true statesmen are very much needed, and to mark the centenary of the great South African's birth, two great 1980s songs that helped bring his incarceration, and apartheid, to worldwide attention
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When things get out of hand in politics …
Song of the Day: In the heat of farcical parliamentary Brexit manoeuvrings and Trump trampling through the ruins of international relations, here's a clever reimagining of a white-collar high-level meeting if it was a street-gang brawl
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Putin takes Trump for a ride
Song of the Day: After Rocky Mountain Mike's humour take on Donald Trump and the far right, another great satirist focuses on the Russian leader's ego through the prism of musical hall and ragtime
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Go home, you fuckwit
Song of the Day: To mark the unwelcome visit of the current US president to the UK, two ironic versions of the famous Bob Dylan song that capture the falsehood, narcissism, hypocrisy and divisive racism of the Donald
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