This will be this evening’s thing to watch. Politics, history and music… all the things we love.

By Sara Al Ibrahim, for Loft965.com

Walking into the Flash Yas Arena I expected the standard pre-concert activities. Walking around trying to find friends, stocking up on food and drinks before the concessions stand gets too crowded, and the general standing and waiting for the star of the night to make their appearance. I was very pleasantly surprised by the pre-show entertainment, which consisted of games where concertgoers could win fun prizes, and a photo booth fully stocked with wacky accessories to make for some photos you’re sure to remember years later. The opening act of the night was Abri, who I must say set the mood for what was to come. His smooth vocals warmed up the crowd and seemed to bring people together in their excitement.

We weren’t kept waiting for long, as we could soon hear music that caused a mass rush towards the stage from all sides of the venue. Dramatic drums served as an intro to “Soldier of Love” where the sexy dark silhouette of Sade appeared center-stage ready to seduce our senses. We were taken on an emotional rollercoaster with her selection of 21 songs off her 10 studio albums, spanned over her 20+ year career, ranging from the happy upbeat “Color of Love,” the slow sad lullaby that is “Jezebel,” to what are arguably two of her biggest hits “Smooth Operator” and “Sweetest Taboo.”

The stage setup was simple and elegant, which is very fitting to Sade’s vocally-charged performance style. Her live vocals are arguably the best in today’s lip-synching laced concert market. The band followed her every move, note and word. The incorporation of her band into the song transitions made the concert flow as though seconds had passed by, and that she had never left the stage for a moment. Her wardrobe changes complimented the stage setups to a T, from wearing all black suit, to a long slinky white sequin gown, which left everyone wondering how she looks this good as a woman in her 50’s! I must add that she was barefoot most of the second half of the concert which left her free to move and dance and connect with her entranced adoring audience.

Not one to disappoint, Sade used her strong, smooth, sexy voice to keep us in a daze throughout her almost 2 hour set, which was longer than most artists, but seemed to last for only a few moments.

Sade made a conscious effort to connect with the UAE, using Arabic words such as “Shukran” and even renaming Abu Dhabi to Adu Dhabi (Adu being her surname) for the night. Those little things made her concert feel personal to everyone there, even prompting people to say “She’s so down to earth” and “I felt like I was onstage with her”.

By the end of the night not a dry eye was in the house as this was the closing night of the tour. A teary-eyed Sade introduced and thanked every member of her band with heartfelt words that made the audience feel as though they were part of her tour family. The passion and love for music and performing Sade exhibited during her performance left you feeling like it was all a dream… a beautiful dream you never want to awake from.

For more writing from Sara, please visit her blog here. 

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1. Greetings from Kuwait! Loft965.com picked “Phakade”  and “Mali” as a “Sexy Tracks” of 2011! How do you feel about that and what do you think the rest of the year holds for you?

Amazing, I did not expect that the African songs would resonate but I think this is very exciting! Thank you! I’m going to spend the rest of the year taking advantage of Southern African Festival season so that I can reach more fans.

2. As of now, “Mali” is constantly on our stereos! Will it ever get released as a single?

It is currently one of our singles in South Africa.

3. You just released an EP for your American audience. Are you planning on launching your new album there and when will it be?

I’m planning to launch a full album  titled Rise Again in early 2012 and then follow it up with a tour from the end of January. The album is a combination of tracks from Feel Good, Soul in Mind but mainly containing new tracks from my Return to Love album.

4. Are you going on tour? What will be your next single?

Yes my tour will span over the entire North America and it will be 60 days long!

5. We love quotes, what is your favorite quote or motto?

I post so many on my twitter and facebook page periodically. My favourite one from this week is “Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own.”

And we are off to Cape Town now! For reals!

The queen of smooth is heading to the Middle East. Sade and her band are going to perform live in the ever-so-visited Yas Island on Friday the 16th of December, 2011. This is her first time in the city and she will undoubtedly put on a good show as she has previously been known for. The tour has been launched to promote her new last album Soldier Of Love. Get your tickets from here right now! It will be put together buy the people who brought you Janet Jackson and Britney Spears this year, Think Flash.

Some beautiful sounds from down south for you.

Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born of Malian parents in the Ivory Coast in 1982. As a child she became a member of her father’s dance troupe and was a popular performer of the wildly flailing didadi dance from Wassoulou, her ancestral home in western Mali. She was an energetic and headstrong girl and at the age of twelve her refusal to go to school finally prompted her parents to send her to live and be disciplined by an aunt in Bamako. She was not to see her parents again for over a decade.

Her aunt was an actress, and a few years after arriving, Fatou found herself on a film set looking after her aunt’s infant child. The film’s director was captivated by Fatou’s adolescent beauty and she was given a one line part in the final scene of the film ‘Taafe Fangan’ (‘The Power of Women’). This led to her being given a lead role by the celebrated director Cheick Omar Sissoko in his 1999 film ‘La Genèse’ (Genesis).

At the age of eighteen Fatou travelled to Paris to perform the classical Greek role of Antigone on stage. After touring with the production she returned to Mali where she was given the lead in Dani Kouyaté’s popular 2001 film ‘Sia, The Dream of the Python’. The film tells the story of a West African legend called Sia, a young girl who defies tradition. To many in Mali, Guinea, Senegal and Burkina Faso, Fatou is Sia thanks to the film’s enormous success throughout the region.

Offers for further acting roles poured in but Fatou’s family wanted her to settle down and marry and forced her to announce, live on Malian television, that she was abandoning her career as an actress.

In 2002 Jean-Louis Courcoult, the director of the renowned French theatre company, Royale de Luxe, travelled to Bamako to offer Fatou a part in his new production. An unmarried woman is considered a minor in Malian society so her family’s permission was required. They refused. After much soul searching Fatou took the daring decision to run away and at Bamako airport she managed to board a plane for Paris, narrowly escaping the pursuit of the police who had been alerted to the girl’s ‘kidnapping’.

With Royal de Luxe Fatou performed a variety of roles around the world including tours in Vietnam, Mexico and throughout Europe. During rehearsals and quiet moments she took to singing backstage for her own amusement. She was overheard by the director and was soon singing solo during the company’s performances. Encouraged by the reception from audiences she began to sing in Parisian clubs and cafes during breaks from touring. Here she met Cheikh Tidiane Seck the celebrated Malian musician and producer who invited her to travel with him back to Mali to work on two projects as chorus vocalist; ‘Seya’ the GRAMMY nominated album by Mali’s star Oumou Sangaré and ‘Red Earth’ the GRAMMY winning Malian project by American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater. When the albums were released Fatou toured worldwide as singer and dancer with both projects.

On her return to France Fatou took the role of Karaba in the popular touring musical ‘Kirikou and Karaba’. She was encouraged to take the role by her friend Rokia Traore who also inspired her to take up the guitar: “To me it was a wonderful and daring thing: a Malian girl with an acoustic guitar. Why should the guitar be only for men?” Fatou bought herself a guitar and started to teach herself, and at the same time began to write down her own compositions.

She made the decision to dedicate herself to her passion, music. She worked to complete an album’s worth of songs and started recording demos for which she composed and arranged all the titles, as well as playing guitar, percussion, bass and singing lead and harmony vocals. An introduction from Oumou Sangaré resulted in a record deal with World Circuit and the recording of her debut album.

Between recording sessions she found time to collaborate on Damon Albarn’s Africa Express and contribute vocals to albums by Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, Herbie Hancock’s GRAMMY winning Imagine Project and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.

Fatou’s EP ‘Kanou’ is released on 9 May, 2011 followed by her debut album ‘Fatou’ on 19 September, 2011

#Libya

“A baboon laughs at the buttocks of another baboon.” – Kenyan proverb

Nneka is back with her second album with politically-oriented lyrics and a message in a form of a song directed to Nigeria. This one’s a little too heavy to be the first single and the music is nothing close to a homerun, but it’s worth a note.

If Sade would stop recording live albums and compiling another greatest hits collection after each and every album she released then maybe we will have time to care more about what she does. She seems to follow the corporate ideals of Madonna – waste less time on music and more on repackaging it. This is anotehr lackluster from her last comeback.

Sweet and sultry, Lira’s fourth full-lengther develops the sounds that we have gotten so used to and have grown to love. Here, you are taken to an African landscape lush with life and colors – a great soulful feel that her oeuvre is characteristic of. The video is also breathtaking and gives you an aura of serenity and warmth. This is just a lovely song that you can play on repeat forever.

Lira’s fourth album.

South African moodiness

at its greatest prime.

Les Nubians have left our radar a long time ago, so to see them still going is good. Not our kind of music really, but worth a check-out. This is from their new album Nü Revolution.

Lira’s fourth album Return To Love just made it to our desk last night and we are very excited to review this South African soultress’s latest.

We didn’t even know this was out. Not good at all, but very funny. The RuPaul’s Drag Race winner could have done better with the “Cameroon” theme.

Although we do not approve if Sade releasing yet another greatest hits collection, it is made easier by the fact that it contains some new material for us to enjoy. This new track is on the collection and its better than have of the stuff that was on the previous album. Click below to listen to it.

We have been waiting for this for a long long time. It’s here and this is a condensed version. Lovely balladry that brings the African wind right back to our memories. Lira is on a roll and will not stop at anything, this is just breathtaking, too bad you can only purchases it in South Africa.

- Jane Rule

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur.

You take the front line when there is danger.

Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

- Nelson Mandela

Rumors just in that the legendary Nelson Mandela has passed away. Not sure yet, but this is just a notification of the alleged news.

UPDATE: It is just a rumor. Mandela has just been released from the hospital and is recovering.

“Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918)^[1] served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata (Xhosa: father) ^[2].

Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.”

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Loft965.com is very happy to be the first blog on earth to bring to your the cover of Lira’s new album.

Lira had an exceptional 2010 – becoming the first South African artist to release a live music concert on Blu-ray and selling multi-platinum numbers of her live DVD.

Now, early 2011, sees the multi-award winning artist return with a brand new studio album that’s nothing short of extraordinary – and a fitting calling card for Lira’s much-anticipated breakthrough onto the global music stage.

Titled Return To Love – Lira’s fourth studio album is a masterful record that draws together everything that Lira has worked for since she first embarked on her music career – at first tentatively with her 2003 debut and, from 2006’s Feel Good onwards, with mounting confidence in her singular abilities.

Lira’s triumph at the 2009 South African Music Awards, where she won Album of the Year and Best Female Artist for the 2008 record, SOUL IN MIND, and subsequent multi-platinum sales of her second two records and her LIVE IN CONCERT – A CELEBRATION DVD (2009) proved she had the voice, the songs, and the performing ability to strike into the hearts of South African music fans.

But one listen to RETURN TO LOVE and it’s clear that over the course of her first trio of albums, Lira was only just beginning to reveal her musical gifts.

“I was very focused on defining the ‘Lira’ sound even more, with this album,” Lira says of the vision behind possibly the classiest – yet infinitely accessible – record to come out of South Africa in a long while. “I wanted to send this out into the greater musical world with a real solid, really refined sound that is unmistakably my own.”

In this quest, Lira, and her producer as well as primary co-songwriter, Robin Kohl, have succeeded handsomely.

If comparisons are to be made, there’s a real feel of Sade’s earlier work, in Lira’s scorching, soul-filled vocals. And yet the subtle sense of her South African roots that flickers throughout the material, along with Lira’s unique vocal stylings mean there is nothing copycat about RETURN TO LOVE.

“It was always my feeling that I don’t want to be boxed into being a particular kind of artist,” Lira says with the quiet emphasis of someone who knows precisely what they desire. “On this album, too I didn’t want to be restrained in what sounds we included on the album so there is some funk, ragga, urban, traditional African sounds, and, of course, plenty of soul.”

At 11-tracks, the album finds its lyrical footing in all the things that Lira loves – from dancing to singing, being introspective, loving others, philosophising, and stirring people’s consciousness. “I love to dance. I love to love! I’m a romantic. But I also like to be contemplative,” she says.

Standout tracks are hard to pin down.

Whether she’s writing about the relentless tug of heartache on ‘Call Me’, or the plaintive plea for answers in a world that’s lost its way (“Money and greed cast a shadow on the sun/Yes, I see it burning up the skies”) on ‘Abba’ or the need for individuals to take charge of their live on ‘Get Into Action’, Lira’s words have a force that few can match. Other album highlights include ‘Mali’, with its Bossa and Mbaqanga mix, as well as ‘Phakade’, which has all the hallmarks of a wedding song, along with the more somber, ‘Be My Friend’.

With a lineup of live shows that will keep her calendar full throughout the coming year, significant international interest in her work, and an album that’s as good as anything released internationally, Lira’s ready to deliver yet again to her loyal fanbase – and take on the world.

Lira is coming right back at you with a fourth full-length album that will probably never reach us here until a century later. It’s called Return To Love and its probably going to have the most sultry beats of the year. Can’t wait!

Lira has just tweeted that her new single from her fourth full-length album is going to be titled “Phakade.” Sony Music Africa is readying it up. Let’s hope that it gets a great video treatment, which is what we are used to from our South African export. For those of you who do not know this great chanteuse, she is probably one of the greatest vocalists of our time and has a brand of music that will put you in a lovely mood instantly. Last April we stopped by South Africa on our way to Zambia only to find out that her live CD/DVD was sold out from all stores. It’s been a while since we heard of a music release that has been sold out in its physical form. Check her out, you won’t be disappointed.  Also, we need some Sesotho translators to tell us what the title means.