Let me dance next to your fire... at the Blue Nile

Photos from Saturday's Samba Mapangala show at the Blue Nile in Minneapolis (one appeared in today's City Pages). The show, previewed below, starred Mapangala (in the ball cap three photos down), singer of Orchestra Virunga (listen to "Vunja Mifupa," "Virunga," and "Malako," or buy these CDs). DJ Top Donn was downstairs, though I missed him. It was all part of the Minneapolis celebration of Kenyatta Day, Kenya's independence celebration. Hip-Hop Colony, the documentary about Kenyan hip hop that screened earlier, was great, if talky (cool factoid: rap music made Swahili hep again in Kenya). Looking forward to talking more to Samora and Simbo, whom I met after the screening.

Bruce Odhiambo of Johari Cleff Studios in Nairobi, one of Kenya's premiere hip-hop producers, has written hundreds of songs for countless rap acts.