Nangadeef – Ray Lema, 1989

🇨🇩 🎹 ⚡ 🌍 🎶 In 1989, with Nangadeef, Ray Lema—then signed to Mango/Island—continued his experiments to modernise African musical traditions, drawing from electro sounds, funk, and the harmonies and rhythms of the entire continent. He collaborated with the best artists suited to each musical atmosphere, including Paco Séry, Etienne Mbappé, Courtney Pine, Lokua Kanza, and the Mahotella Queens. The subsequent tour took him to an audience of nearly 100,000 in Portugal, and he presented Nangadeef (which means « hello » in Wolof) at the Francofolies festival. However, Island, disappointed by its commercial reception, only supported him for his next album, Gaïa, before dropping him. Lema continued his journey elsewhere, recording with Joachim Kühn in 1992 and reinterpreting his own repertoire in a piano-and-voice format on Green Light in 1996.