Mining music...

Louis, master mechanic and friend since 1993, told me about this place in Zanzibar where he used to hang out as a youth. On a wall, someone had scribbled "Sea Never Dry" and that's what they called it. Louis used to build trucks; now he's working in a nickel mine.

It's a good name for this music blog because there is still so much African vinyl to discover. Though some of it is disappearing, like Papa Disco's vinyl stock. The late Papa Disco owned one of the few remaining record stores in Cotonou; recently, Voodoo Funk's Frank in Conakry wrote me that Papa Disco's widow had burned her late husband's record collection, which was stored with the chickens, to make room...

There still is plenty music left to be dug up. One of those vinyl archaeological finds is "Black Power" by The Peace, a band who recorded in Ndola, the capital of the Zambian copperbelt (when it was still flourishing in the 1970s). I found this album in an oily metal chest, owned by the former recording engineer of Kuzwhayo records, who turned to truck engineering after the music scene died.

There's much more music to be shared . Let's start it with The Peace's "I'm a Peaceful Man" and "Black Power."