Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | The next global star of Tuareg blues is born, and it is in Montreal

by Frédéric Cardin

As you will learn in the interview linked below, Boubé has been living in Montreal for just over a year, but has already won the heart of the city. His desert blues, that of the Tuaregs, a nomadic people from whom he comes (more specifically from Niger) is rooted in the great tradition of Moctar and Bambino, artistic sources from which he has drawn, is authentic, dynamic, catchy and exciting. On the Balattou stage, Sunday night, in front of a large audience packed tightly into the small space, which gives the Montreal club all its personality and appeal, Boubé ran through his already rich repertoire of hits and earworms that we like to hear as often as possible. Excerpts from his first and only album to date, the aptly named Voyager, (READ MY REVIEW HERE), the tracks followed one another in a crescendo of intensity, spread over two well-crafted sets, leading to a finale overflowing with energy and sublimated by totally invested musicians: Sylvain Plante (ecstatic drums!), Carlo Birri (quiet but irrepressible force on bass), Ibrahim Seydi (with flights of percussion), Vincent Duhaime Perreault (excellent guitarist whose fiery duets with Boubé have something of the great rock shows of lore), and of course Boubé himself on guitar and vocals. We had already perceived the talent and potential at the 2024 Syli d’Or, where he received the silver award. But since then, the progress has been quite rapid, and I feel that the opening of the doors to the international market is not far off. Vincent Duhaime Perreault, the band’s guitarist and also Boubé’s manager, promises us important projects to come, without naming them yet. We are very, very excited, because, starting from Montreal, which he says he loves very much and where he has found a family and a warm home, Boubé has everything he needs to become the next international star of Desert blues.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW CONDUCTED WITH BOUBÉ BY MY COLLEAGUE KEITHY ANTOINE

Africa / West African traditional music

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté, An Undeniable Diva

by Sandra Gasana

I’ve rarely seen the Loto Québec stage so full. Usually, at the start of the 7pm concert, it’s crowded but rarely packed. Here, even before the Guinean diva appeared, festival-goers had arrived early, hoping to get a closer look at their idol. The woman dubbed the new star of Guinean soul was accompanied by the same musicians as her husband Soul Bang’s the day before, at Balattou.

With them, she opts to open with a reggae-style song, and immediately the assembly starts singing the lyrics in unison. Dressed in a red sequined outfit with canvas sleeves, the griot descendant of the legend Mory Kanté has nothing to prove: talent runs through her veins. With a new album released in June, Mousso Chapitre 1, which means woman in Bambara, she plays African maracas throughout the show, on which she brings her microphone closer when necessary.

On the more rhythmic tracks, she reveals her talent as a dancer, and on the calmer ones, her voice transcends us. “This song is for moms. But I don’t want to do it in a sad way, but I want to do it in the joy of living,” she warns us before the eponymous song Mousso. At times, her voice reminds me of Oumou Sangaré’s, especially when she goes high.

It’s not always good to compare, but in this case, the traditional touch is more present than in the register of her husband, who played the day before. She inserts some modern elements into her music, but she does so while retaining the traditional Guinean essence.

The song Bhouloundjouri was a particular hit with the audience, who knew every word and kept asking for more, even after the song was over. An expression I often hear at concerts in West Africa is: “Il faut bisser”, meaning you have to play the song again. I heard this expression in the crowd on Saturday night.

She played several tracks from his most recent album, such as Mon Roi, but also several of his singles, such as Ké Douma Suma. As mentioned during my interview with the couple, there was talk of Soul Bang’s making an appearance at his wife’s concert, as she had done the day before at Balattou. He did just that, appearing in traditional-modern garb, matching hat and sunglasses.

Barely on stage, he took control and Manamba faded into the background for a few songs, before taking her place again in an exchange with the audience as only griottes know how. It was as if she were preaching, with a few powerful melodies to accompany. “I am the heiress of Soumaoro Kanté, my ancestors were blacksmiths, griots. The balafon comes from Guinea, and it’s the Kouyatés who play it,” she teaches us.

A woman nearby seemed to nod in agreement with what the artist was saying, and then Soul Bang’s added its soulful touch.

There were only 4 minutes left, which could have been enough for one last Manamba song before closing, but Soul Bang’s preferred to play his song Djere Lele, which he had played the day before at Balattou. He was thus able to feel the emotions his wife had experienced for almost an hour that evening.

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Africa / Afro Latin / Electronic / latino

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, A Feline Like No Other

by Sandra Gasana

Nothing to do with the famous cabaret Le Chat Noir in Paris, the artist was christened “El Gato Negro” during his stay in Latin America, as he was described as “a nocturnal animal, an alley cat, slightly brigandish on the edges”. This name has never left him, even some twenty years later.

He begins with vocals, then starts dancing, before adding a huge flute with a black tip. He then returns to his console to throw us a fusion of African, Latin American and electro rhythms, all nicely arranged.

My favorite is clearly Mundo Cae, a duet with Assane Mboup, a Senegalese artist he praises. Taken from the album Tigre qui pleure, released in 2024, we notice his penchant for felines. What’s more, he masters the art of staging, embodying a character during his performances, combining theater, dance and song.

In impeccable Spanish, he addressed the audience in that language, which many seemed to understand. In between songs, he paid tribute to the Colombians in the audience.

“You look strange, Montreal, and I like that!” he asserts before playing a song that advocates difference.

A highlight of the evening was during Bombon de canela, from the 2019 album Ouvre la porte, on which he includes the famous line “Como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez” in Besame Mucho. He gives us a feint at the end of the song, remaining motionless for almost 2 minutes, before returning with the danceable rhythm.

In Marie-Claire, the woman who “shoots bad husbands”, we savor a blend of ancient Latin rhythms, but brought up to date with electro and other ambient sounds added by the artist. In a way, this is El Gato Negro’s universe: Afro-Latin rhythms, revisited by electronics, but with the addition of sounds such as the balafon, the kora or the tama.

Special mention was made of Cosmovision, the label behind the invitation. This label demonstrated the breadth of its network, helping us to discover a number of nuggets during this edition of Nuits d’Afrique.

Photo Credit: André Rival

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Gnawa

Nights of Africa 2025 | A gnawa fusion reactor named Saïd Mesnaoui

by Frédéric Cardin

The Montrealer Saïd Mesnaoui may not have been born in the city and may now divide his time between it, Paris and Morocco, but after living there for a dozen years and having built up a network of unfailing friends, it is always a bit like coming home each time he comes to give a concert. It is partly thanks to Montreal that the artist developed and built his post-gnawa trad style, which the name of his group Transe Gnawa Fusion effectively betrays.

Mixed with reggae, funk, rock, jazz, and who knows what else, his gnawa, a classical and sacred musical genre of great spiritual power, itself born from a fusion of Islam, possession rites (exorcism), and practices from descendants of slaves in the sub-Saharan region of Morocco. A genre with precise codes and reserved uses, therefore. But the expressive power of this music quickly convinced people, including foreigners, to pay attention to it and even to practice it outside of strictly religious circles. There are, in Montreal, artists who play pure gnawa music. But Saïd Mesnaoui, once he had put down his suitcases in Montreal in 1986, wanted to modernize the approach, and the result was what we have been hearing since with Transe Gnawa Fusion.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW WITH SAÏD MESNAOUI (in French)

Last Friday, at the Fairmount Theatre, the spicy and vigorous stew concocted by Mesnaoui once again fulfilled its promises, lifting the spectators from their seats, who danced and swayed their hips to the various underlying rhythms used by the experienced artist to propel his vision of the gnawa tradition. Some great classics, which can be heard on existing albums, many of which come from the most recent opus, Al Maddloum (The Oppressed), but some songs that betray a new program to come in a possible recording.

We had fun, we really absorbed all the vibrant energy from the musicians on stage, and we left satisfied.

Aziz Badi – Percussions

Pascal Bujold – Guitar

Jean-Christophe Carette – Piano

André Désilets – Wind instruments (brass + wood)

Gabriel Lajoie – Bass

Saïd MESNAOUI – Vocals

Sylvain Plante – Drums

Rachide Salamatte – Percussions

Kora / West African traditional music

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: benevolence and complicity

by Frédéric Cardin

The concert by Sousou and Maher Cissoko, a Senegalese-Swedish guitar/kora/vocal duo, had a benevolent and entirely appropriate vibe. For the third time in their career, the man and woman, a couple in real life, took the stage at the Balattou club last Thursday. We knew what to expect, as their albums give a good idea of the sound and atmosphere, which are well respected live. A few new songs were offered, those that are most likely to be found on a future album (we don’t know when yet). Sousou had actually promised us this in the interview she gave me before the concert.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH SOUSOU CISSOKO

The two artists are life and music partners, and you can tell. The looks are sincere, imbued with love and tenderness, but not ostentatiously so, as if to hammer the point or play a part. No, it’s just something that one detects and feels. This energy is carried by and within the music, always with equal energy, like a companion to the stroll through the time and space of the African griots’ world. A few pieces stir the air of the Balattou a bit more, but it remains essentially music that caresses, that does not seek to outdo urgency and excitement. Music that feels incredibly good in a time of frankly exhausting ambient stress.

A music that, by its very nature, but also thanks to its authentic and inspiring pair of performers, border-crossers and bearers of humanism, fills us with hope and optimism.

latino / Salsa

Nuits d’Afrique | Las Karamba And Their Militant Salsa

by Michel Labrecque

What can I say? On this cool July evening, the stages of the Festival Nuits d’Afrique were on fire. First, for the concert by Manamba Kanté, daughter of griot Mory Kanté, one of the precursors of the modernization of African music. The multicultural, but very African-Montreal crowd was in a trance.

Would this state of mind be maintained for the next concert, with Las Karamba, a sextet of Latin American immigrants to Barcelona, who have made salsa and Afro-Cuban rhythms their own? Yes, they would!

Las Karamba are two Venezuelan sisters, two Cubans, an Argentinean and a Catalan, who met in the Catalan metropolis. Two albums later, the women are producing original, feminist, committed and festive salsa. It’s hard to resist the magnetic charisma of singer Ahyvin Bruno and her colleagues.

They make a salsa with no brass, apart from a transverse flute, where the voices take up a lot of space. At times, we find ourselves in a rap or slam salsa, with spoken texts. The two percussionists keep the rhythm tight, but complex. We don’t hear any great improvisations, but the presence of the six women and their enthusiasm make up for it.

The ultimate barometer of this kind of concert: there was a lot of dancing and a lot of smiling. Those who understand Spanish were also able to meditate on what remains of patriarchy today, while waddling along. The world is paradoxical, my friends.

In the middle of their performance, the girls sang a resistance song a capella. Salsa sometimes embodies a masculine, macho world. Las Karamba provided us with a feminist antidote. Following in the footsteps of Cuban-American Celia Cruz, who inspired them.

There was a very good crowd for this last evening of Nuits d’Afrique.

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nu-métal / Rock

Linkin Park au Centre Bell

by Rédaction PAN M 360

Linkin Park est un groupe de rock américain originaire d’Agoura Hills, en Californie. Depuis sa formation en 1996, le groupe a vendu plus de 100 millions d’albums et a été récompensé par la Recording Academy à deux reprises. Le groupe a connu le succès avec son premier album, Hybrid Theory, qui a été certifié Diamant par la RIAA en 2005.

Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Since its formation in 1996, the band has sold more than 100 million albums and has been awarded by The Recording Academy in two occasions. It achieved mainstream success with its debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005.

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Ce contenu provient d’evenko et est adapté par PAN M 360

Pop

Katy Perry au Centre Bell

by Rédaction PAN M 360

Katy Perry est une chanteuse pop qui s’est fait connaître en 2008 avec le tube « I Kissed a Girl ». Son album Teenage Dream, sorti en 2010, contient cinq chansons qui ont atteint la première place du Billboard Hot 100 aux États-Unis, ce qui lui a valu d’être la première artiste féminine à réaliser cet exploit. Elle a été élue femme de l’année par le Billboard en 2012. En 2018, elle est devenue juge dans l’émission American Idol.

Katy Perry is an American pop singer who emerged as one of the most influential artists of the 2010s. She rose to fame in 2008 with the hit I Kissed a Girl and continued her global success with chart-topping singles like Firework, Teenage Dream, and Roar. Her album Teenage Dream made history by tying Michael Jackson’s record with five number-one singles. Known for her vibrant visuals and spectacular performances, Katy Perry remains a defining figure in contemporary pop culture.

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Avant-Garde / Experimental / Contemporary / hip-hop abstrait

clipping. au Théâtre Fairmount

by Rédaction PAN M 360

Avec une association atypique de flows de rap techniques et de bruitages abrasifs, le trio expérimental clipping. aborde la production hip-hop sous un angle inédit. Bien que leur style évolue à chaque sortie, ils conservent une énergie expérimentale et souvent provocante. Après des sorties indépendantes en cassette et en numérique au début des années 2010, ils dévoilent leur premier album officiel, CLPPNG, en 2014, suivi de l’opéra spatial afrofuturiste Splendor & Misery en 2016. Leurs albums There Existed an Addiction to Blood (2019) et Visions of Bodies Being Burned (2020) s’inspirent fortement du horrorcore, tandis que Dead Channel Sky (2025) puise dans le cyberpunk et la techno des années 90.

With an unconventional pairing of technical rap flows and abrasive noise, experimental trio clipping. approach hip-hop production from largely uncharted territory. Though the group morph into something new with almost every release, they hold on to their core of experimental and often-confrontational energy. Debuting with independent cassette and digital releases during the early 2010s, their proper debut album, CLPPNG, appeared in 2014, followed by the Afrofuturist space opera Splendor & Misery in 2016. Two related albums, 2019’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood and 2020’s Visions of Bodies Being Burned, were heavily influenced by horrorcore, and 2025’s Dead Channel Sky drew from cyberpunk and ’90s techno.

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Ce contenu provient d‘AllMusic et est adapté par PAN M 360

Electronic / Experimental

Centre PHI : Myriade chromatique

by Rédaction PAN M 360

Jouant avec les phénomènes optiques tels que la réflexion et la diffraction, Myriade chromatique redéfinit la relation entre le paysage urbain, l’architecture du Centre PHI et notre regard.
Offrant un tableau à caractère impressionniste, cette installation d’art public nous invite à apprécier une nouvelle facette de la ville, déployant des réflections miroitantes, des couleurs chatoyantes et une certaine reconfiguration de l’architecture environnante.
En constante métamorphose, la perception du paysage se construit selon notre point de vue et nous encourage à rechercher de nouvelles perspectives et à découvrir de nouvelles couleurs.
L’œuvre incite à la curiosité, nous pousse à interagir avec l’art et enrichit le dialogue entre le Centre PHI, le public et notre ville.

Playing with optical phenomena such as reflection and diffraction, Myriade chromatique redefines the relationship between the urban landscape, the architecture of the Centre PHI and our gaze.
Offering an impressionistic tableau, this public art installation invites us to appreciate a new facet of the city, deploying shimmering reflections, shimmering colors and a certain reconfiguration of the surrounding architecture.
In constant metamorphosis, our perception of the landscape is shaped by our point of view, encouraging us to seek out new perspectives and discover new colors.
The work incites curiosity, encourages us to interact with art and enriches the dialogue between the Centre PHI, the public and our city.

Aucune réservation requise (du coucher du soleil à 23h)

Ce contenu provient du Centre PHI et est adapté par PAN M 360.

Africa / Mandingo Blues / Soul/R&B

Nuits d’Afrique | Tyrane Mondeny: The Rising Star Has Reached Her Destination

by Sandra Gasana

I said that Tyrane Mondeny was a rising star following my interview with her a few days before her arrival in Montreal. But after last night’s show on the Scène Loto Québec in the Femmes du monde des Nuits d’Afrique series, Lionne Tyrane showed us that she is now playing in the big league.

Always with an African touch in her outfits, she arrived on stage after her musicians, and from the very first track she was already on fire, presenting us with her Mandingo soul, mixed with gospel and R&B, with rhythms from her home in Côte d’Ivoire. Keyboard, bass, guitar, drums – these were the instruments that accompanied the artist who loves to showcase her musicians. On several occasions, she moved closer to them to let them shine in their turn. I recognized the one everyone’s been snatching up on guitar, the Senegalese giant Assane Seck, who accompanies several artists in Montreal.

We recognize some Arab sounds in one of the opening tracks, a small allusion to her adopted country, Morocco, but also American soul, which she masters particularly well, with impeccable English.

“I’ve travelled 12,000 km to be here tonight,” she says, before launching into a song paying tribute to women and denouncing the violence they suffer.

A new feature of this concert is that she plays guitar, an instrument she adds to her many strings, in addition to the percussion she plays on stage and a traditional Ivorian instrument consisting of a metal rod.

She also pays a moving tribute to her parents in heaven, in the track Prayer, which the audience felt even without understanding the lyrics. After this gentle passage, she’s back to being the lioness we know, and continues her rampage, with dance steps worthy of a professional (she has a background as a dancer) while interacting with her guitarist.

“Are there any Ivorians in the audience?” she asked the growing crowd, but we didn’t have many answers.

She covered a classic of her own, which seemed to be appreciated by the audience for its spiritual aspect, before paying tribute to the children, in a song rich in emotion. She managed to get the crowd singing along, responding to her every instruction. It’s clear that Tyrane is in control and feeling increasingly comfortable on stage.

She quickly invites a dancer on stage, whom I didn’t know, and with whom she does a few traditional dance steps.

“If I’m here tonight, it’s thanks to two people who are here tonight: Veeby and Fredy Massamba”, alluding to the instigators of the Festival afropolitain nomade, in which she has participated on several occasions.

She finished with some of her classics, including her hit Hakuna Matata, in a joyous and cheerful mood, in front of an audience who were discovering her for some, who may have seen her at Balattou last November, or at Afromusée in June 2024 for others.

The rising star has arrived at his destination, and the Nuits d’Afrique audience was there to see it. We wish him even bigger stages, an even bigger audience and endless success.

Photo Credit: M. Belmellat

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Electronic / House / Techno

Fierté Montréal : L’After FeminiX à la SAT

by Rédaction PAN M 360

L’After FeminiX de Fierté Montréal est une fête 100 % femmes, 100 % feu, dans le mythique Dôme de la SAT, avec des visuels euphoriques en 360°.
Un line-up entièrement féminin prend le contrôle des platines pour célébrer les femmes queer et la liberté pure du dancefloor, portée par le meilleur de la musique électronique.
Jen Cardini (Paris) – Pionnière de la house aux accents wave et icône de la culture club queer, avec plus de 30 ans derrière les platines.
Juana (Chicago) – Techno percutante et engagée, entendue à Berghain, De School et dans le circuit Discwoman.
Zi! (Montréal) – Force montante et légende en devenir, incarnant la magie brute de l’underground montréalais.
Trois villes – Trois étoiles – Une soirée de pure célébration féminine.

Fierté Montréal’s L’After FeminiX is an all-femme, all-fire Pride blowout inside the iconic Dome at la SAT with 360° euphoric visuals. An all-women DJ lineup takes the decks, celebrating queer women, and pure dancefloor freedom through the best in electronic music.
Jen Cardini (Paris) – A wave-laced house pioneer and queer club culture icon with 30+ years behind the decks.
Juana (Chicago) – Delivering fierce, political techno that’s shaken Berghain, De School, and the Discwoman circuit.
Zi! (Montréal) – A rising local force and legend in the making, channeling the raw magic of Montréal’s underground.
Three cities – Three stars – One night of femme-powered celebration.

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Ce contenu provient de la Société des arts technologiques et est adapté par PAN M 360