Francophiliacs

Lusophone special, topped off with swing

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:52:00 +0000

I just figured out that plenty of portugese-speaking artists are produced in France, or that their songs are on Francophone compilations: Cesaria Evora, CéU, Mayra Andrade,... To draw attention to these lusophone-francophone connections, this week's show features a nearly 1-hour long special on portugese-speaking artists. The second hour starts with a generous helping of swing in the spirit of Django Reinhard, and finishes with some very danceable, traditional and then more progressive middle eastern music. Enjoy!

The Fourth Annual Tournées French Film Festival!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:47:00 +0000

Come join other francophiles at Boardman's Art Theater (www.boardmansarttheater.com) from October 31 to Novemer 6 for the French Film Festival!! Listen to today's show for more information on the movies: Audrey, today's guest, is one of the festival's co-organizers, and gives us background information on all of them, interspersed from film (and film-worthy!) music from France and elsewhere.
Listen to the second half of the show for North African tunes, songs from sub-saharan Africa, and some fresh tunes from the French scene.

Haitian Music special!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Today, we play almost exclusively Haitian music during the first half of the show, in honor of the victims of the tropical storm that recently devastated great parts of Haiti. So we will hear from excellent artists like Emeline Michel, Tifane, and of course Kassav' (Caribbean, although not Haitian!)...
The second half features music from Québec and Western Africa.

Moroccan hip-hop special!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:41:00 +0000

This week, I'm very happy to have as my (virtual) guest Kendra Salois, ethnomusicology student at Berkeley, who is guiding us through some of the most representative hip hop tracks from Morocco. Extremely popular since a few years, and definitely politically expressive, hip-hop is the genre of choice for many young Moroccans, and one of the most interesting (and coolest ;) means of cultural expression in that country today...
The second hour of the show features music from the Indian Ocean, Western Africa, and France.
Enjoy!

Here are the links Kendra mentioned during the show:
raptiviste.net
itoubmusic.com
www.radio2m.ma
"Début de soirée avec Younès" (5-8 mon-fri Moroccan time)
to download Hoba Hoba Spirit's latest album:
http://www.wassprod.com/
http://www.ilovehiphopinmorocco.com/
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=78406764
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=255414502

Cold weather music for hot temperatures

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:14:00 +0000

This week's show is all about keeping cool! In 90 degree weather that feels like 105, we're playing tunes from the colder regions of the Francophone world - such as Canada (including Inuit throat singing), Brittany, and the Swiss Alps... plus, we also have a number of chilly-themed songs, such as "Keep cool" (by Jim Murple Memorial) and "Le vent de l'hiver" (by Raphaël)!
Michael Doucet and Dennis Stroughmatt round off this show with some cajun tracks.

Nicola's back from Morocco!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:18:00 +0000

Nicola has returned to Champaign-Urbana and is ready for some more globe-spanning musical journeys on the airwaves! What is more, she traveled Morocco from Tetouan to Casablanca and from Rabat to Marrakech, and with the help of intrepid musicologist friend Kendra, she collected the freshest batch of what's hip on the Moroccan music scene.
Which doesn't mean there isn't also plenty of chanson, cajun, and subsaharan African music involved in this week's show - enjoy!

Presenting: The Francophone Community Partnership

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:47:00 +0000

The first hour of this week's Francophiliacs features a visit by three guests representing the Francophone Community Partnership, a Registered Student Organization (but also including community elements!), that puts on various events and activities linking Francophone immigrants to the Champaign-Urbana community, and provides immigrants with help getting along and settling down in the US. Listen as we chat about the organization, their experiences, and their activities, such as the Conversation table with francophone immigrants, on Sundays at 10:30 am at St. Patrick's church...
After African music for most of the first hour, the second hour features R'n'B, French-produced Balkan music, and finally some electronic and dance music. Enjoy!

The African Film Festival is coming to town!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:19:00 +0000

And we have been honored with the visit of its organizer, Prof. Mahir Saul, who is telling us a great deal about all those movies from Angola, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon... Head out to the Beverly theaters in Champaign between the 22. and the 28. of February and check them out!
This week's show features music to go with our Film Festival interview, by artists such as Cheick Tidiane Seck, Youssou N'Dour, Amadou et Mariam, and A Fula's Call.

Chanson Rocks!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:48:00 +0000

This week's installment of Francophiliacs features a visit by Cédric of the French department at UIUC, who gives us a guided tour of his favorite French chanson and rock (including such classics as Gainsbourg, Brel and Aznavour!). After this selection of excellent vintages, we continue with new tracks from northern and sub-saharan Africa and finish with a very "Louisian" track, to get you into a Mardi Gras kind of mood... enjoy!

Back to Francophilia!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:57:00 +0000

It's great to be back.....
Nicola has returned from her winter travels and is ready to share some pipin' hot new Francophone music with you! Seems like we're particularly political this week, what with Tiken Jah Fakoly (x2), Keny Arkana and Salif Keita feat. Daara. But danceability isn't getting the short end of the stick either: David Guetta, Eurolove and the tasty tracks by Govinda will keep you grooving...
Thanks for having stayed with us!

Bonne année à tous et à toutes!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:18:00 +0000

We hope all our listeners had a wonderful New Year's celebration and are enjoying the first days of 2008... Have a great new year, and please keep listening to Francophiliacs!
Nicola has had to leave WEFT 90.1 FM and the US to tend to a family crisis, but will be back for the January 14 show, which will also be uploaded. She's looking forward to bringing you bunches and bunches of brand new French and francophone music! Keep listening to www.weft.org, and check back here for new recordings!
A bientôt!!

Bad Spirits, witches, Ghosts & Roses...

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:04:00 +0000

Befitting the season, Francophiliacs this week featured an assortment of "spooky" music, with creepy themes, by eerie singers, or simply music that sounds like it would work well as your Halloween soundtrack! This was a challenge, as the francophone world does not abound (yet?) with Halloween-inspired songs...! We still managed to dedicate slightly more than the first hour to it, and then continued on a trip through African music, including some Afro-Portugese political songs, and finished with a bit of Zydeco.

Fresh winds from the land of electronica

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:31:00 +0000

Thanks a bunch to Sophie for gracing the show with her presence this week! This journey though European club music had us bouncing in our chairs, and made plenty of listeners happy... After this crash course in electronica labels, artists, and shows, we proceeded to keep our more world-music-oriented listeners satisfied with a selection of favorites such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, the ladies of the World Music Network's "Women of Africa", and of course from Manu Chao's latest "la Radiolina"... Plus some tracks by gypsy guitar genius Stéphane Wrembel, from whom we'll surely hear more on this show! (grand merci to Zhenya, who is still sorely missed !)

The Tournées French Film Festival is here!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:23:00 +0000

We're all excited about the French Film Fest that will be hosted at Boardman's Art Theater (http://www.boardmansarttheatre.com/) in downtown Champaign from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4th! That's why, during the whole first hour, Nicola interviewed two organizers of the festival, Lizzie and Audrey, who tell you all you need to know about the seven award-winning movies that will be shown (comedies, drama, art films, documentaries, sci-fi, romance...). If you want more info still on the movies, you can find it here.
In the second hour, to counterbalance the more classical sounds of the movie special, we continued with some maghrébin dance music, Antillean rhythms, and west African women singers.

Hope you can make it out to Boardman's: See you at the movies!! :)

Gypsy-Balkan music, celtic rock, latin tracks and... island music!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 02:15:00 +0000

Who would have thought that Francophonie would hold such an unexpected variety of international influences? It's not the first time that the Francophiliacs are playing celtic rock from deux continents, and zouk + Reunionese maloya has been a winning combination for some time; but this time, we're also indulging in plenty of cuban vibes, reggae rhythms, and even a track in Portugese from CéU. All of these are of course, as always, either by an artists from a francophone country, or produced in one. As we near the end of the show, we even found a way to keep those electronica fans happy with Secretstealth and Jef Stott...!
PS. Thanks again to Armand for the delicious swing tsigane!! :)

North African dance music, West African electronica, and an accordion special

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:55:00 +0000

We started out this week's show with a healthy helping of Bruel music from past and present, and then elegantly switched over to the African continent with some funky dance tunes from the Northern coast. Zebda and Manu Chao provided the pan-mediterranean sound to help us make the way back to Europe, and we then inserted a special on traditional and not-so-traditional accordion music, stretching across the news break. Comments from an interview with French accordionist Jacques Pellarin illustrate the place this instrument holds in French music. Afro-cuban music then sent us back south for a serving of traditional and remixed West African sounds, and the show finishes off with the Caribbean sounds of Valérie Louri.

Cajun music for the soul

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:39:00 +0000

This installment of Francophiliacs features the Louisiana Skipper from the Lunch Bunch Blues, who stuck around after this noontime show to chat about cajun and zydeco. Besides introducing us to some of his favorite artists and tracks, he also explains a great deal about the history and culture of these American-born francophone genres. What's the difference between cajun and zydeco, what's a loup-garou, and how the heck did those French-speakers get down to Louisiana?! This foot-stompin' one-hour special gets topped off with some of our favorite tracks from southern France, the Maghreb and western Africa.

Immigrant issues, island music and funny breakup songs?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:31:00 +0000

Well, this show started out classically enough with a survey of music from Arab francophone countries - Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria,... the various Euro-African collaborations then allowed us to segway into some poignantly political tracks on immigrant issues in France, and that, in turn, led us to some Argentine and Spanish-flavored tunes. Then, however, Nicola came up with a surprising amount of music dealing with breaking up with one's partner - which is treated with an amazing amount of humor in the French tradition!! The artist Shy'm's beautifully bluesy "T'es parti" then allowed us continue with creole music from the French Antilles and the island of Réunion.

Back from break!!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:29:00 +0000

One of the Francophiliacs is now finally back form her summer vacation, and ready to take up web publishing duties again! Here's a fresh Francophile recording with plenty of soulful African folk, some French political sentiment, recent rap impressions, and even some spiritual musings about the hereafter on some of the tracks...
Due to equipment changes, we have decided to publish the recording in two parts and in m4a format. Should this pose a problem for any of our listeners, please drop us a line, and we'll see if we can't switch back to MP3 format again! :)

Support WEFT and the Francophiliacs!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Mon, 14 May 2007 05:06:00 +0000

Besides training Christine as a new co-host, the Francophiliacs have of course also been active pitching the pledge drive to support WEFT (keeping us on the air!). If this week's show inspires you to help us pay the bills (check out all the cool premium CDs! :), go to www.weft.org - no pledge is too small!! You'll also find all the info on premiums and pledge levels there. Please help us keep this great community resource running!
We hope you'll enjoy the next four shows on the radio - Indy, John, and Craig will keep the francophone music spinning on the air, but will probably not be able to post MP3s. After that, Nicola will be back from Brittany, and hopefully bring back lots of neat stories and a bunch of new tunes! Stay tuned!

Francophone Day & visit by Trio Tarana

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:50:00 +0000

This weeks's show was an exciting one for the Francophiliacs! Not only did we revel in crooner's music such as Henri Salvador's, whose new CD we just received in the studio; we also had the artists of Ravish Momin's Trio Tarana visit us, a New York-based band in town for a gig. They shared some wisdom on world music, their US tour, and even played the oud (arab lute) for us! Then in the second hour, we were quizzed on facts surrounding the francophone world by our second guest, who joined us on the occasion of the "Jour de la Francophonie" (March 20) - and we found out we still have a lot to learn! ;) We ended the show by returning to France with a bit of contemporary French chanson.
Thanks very much for stopping by, guys!!

Warm blues and... chilly tunes

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:25:00 +0000

We pretty much split down this week's show in the middle, and dedicated the first hour to blues, reggae and traditionals from such warm places as Mali, Cameroon and Réunion. Then in the second hour we switched gears and played mostly music from our neighbors to the north, with québécois artists such as Le Vent du Nord, Antoine Gratton and François Couture. We hope it's comforting to know that they have it even colder than we do down here!
We also apologize for the quality of much of the recording, which is due to mechanical circumstances beyond out control and which we hope to have fixed soon! Stay tuned (especially on your radio)!

Flamenco is back!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 23:53:00 +0000

We're excited about the new Gypsy Kings CD (yes, some of them hail from the South of France...! ;), and also added some "Chanson Flamenca" and Latin-Arab tunes while we were at it. We also profited to the full extent from the "One World, Many Cultures" represented on the Putumayo-CD of the same title. Somewhere in the middle, we found time for some French and Québécois ska and music from various French-speaking islands, and rounded off our trip through Francophonia with a healthy helping of West African tunes. Warm up a chilly afternoon!

About Guinean music, drumming, and dancing

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:52:00 +0000

We were lucky to have Steve Disanto join us today to talk about learning traditional drumming (djembe, dundun) in Guinea, the Sosa language, and plans for a Guinean drumming and dance troupe to be based in Champaign-Urbana, IL! Listen to the show recording to learn more...

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Francophiliacs) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:48:00 +0000

The Francophiliacs wish you a very happy New Year and much luck in 2007. We hope to keep bringing you interesting, lively, and fun music from all over the Francophone world! We are immensely grateful for all the support we received from our friends, local and online listeners, and some of the more adventurous listeners who sent their recordings our way. Thank you also to the New Orleans consulate for providing much needed financial support to our program which we will surely put to good use in 2007!

Zhenya and Nici
Francophiliacs