Abidjan-

Omnifinance Bank, Cote D’Ivoire said Nigerian Access Bank has acquired an 88 per cent through a combination of purchase of existing shares and injection of additional capital. Omnifinance Bank now has a capital base in excess of US$20million. This follows acquisitions by Access bank in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo
[Source]

Syria is a PR disaster thanks to some of the world’s worst foreign policy. Years of meddling and aggressive action has landed it a permanent spot on the rogue nation list. Among other things it has contributed to the continuing decline of its neighbour, Lebanon, through occupation and later with assassinations and sabotage. [...]

I was in Beirut a couple weeks ago just before the last flare-up. How strange to have just returned from this beautiful city with its great restaurants, fun bars, nice coast and true-to-name “Paris of the Middle East” neighbourhoods, only to hear that Hezbollah guerrillas were now occupying buildings around the hotel we were [...]

Tomorrow I’m off to Syria for a couple weeks. I can’t wait. That means no Benn loxo posts for a while, but I’ll try my best to come home with some good Syrian tunes to share. Before I go, let’s dive into my small collection of Syrian music. Think of this as a [...]

Buenos Aires is shrouded in smoke these days. It’s sort of appropriate for today’s post since we’re going to ROCK OUT. Sorry, I just wanted to write that. But really, if we’re going to “hear” Buenos Aires it’s certainly not by chilling out to some Martha Argerich piano music. While stunningly [...]

It’s the middle of the week and our ears and minds are tired; it’s time for some music that’s a little more delicate than usual. The first time I visited Buenos Aires I randomly met a group of people at some hostel who were big into the Argentinian contemporary dance scene. Not exactly your average [...]

I’ve been to Istanbul a couple times now. I love it. I was there a few weeks ago working on the Asian bank at Samanyolu TV, one of the stations in the Gülen media empire. It made for an interesting contrast since I’d spend most of the day at a moderate Islamic television station [...]

I spent some time last month in Copenhagen, Denmark, working at the new DR Byen complex (Danmarks Radio City, above). Sure, the project is over-budget and riddled with controversy. But if you ask me, DR Byen is beautiful. The symphony hall, still under construction, is by Jean Nouvel and contains several concert halls, the [...]

During one of my recent trips to London my old friend James and I went to see Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar. I had always wanted to go to the Bucovina Club nights in Frankfurt but never made it over, so I’d finally catch-up with Shantel at a London venue conveniently near work, [...]

I was going to post about something else today, but last night we were invited by some friends in Paris for some mean, home-made Indian food. After dinner we all settled into a trashy Hindi movie, Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswathi, starring everyone’s favourite megastar, Amitabh Bachchan… as you do. The first time I (deliberately) saw Bachchan [...]

Alright, before we get re-started let me lay down some ground rules: I’ll only post - music from countries I’ve been to or will soon visit, OR - music directly related to experiences in my life I don’t want to stray too far here, but if I stick to the above two rules we’ll keep things in line. [...]

A few of you have noticed that I’ve been away for quite a while. Thanks for the e-mails and comments urging me back.. it won’t be long now. I’ve been traveling a lot over the past couple months to England, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Canada and soon Syria, Ireland, China and who knows where else. [...]

Wow, now that’s an amazing photo. Serge is definitely in margaritaville. I’m going to devote the last post in this Mauritius series to Serge Lebrasse. Once again this music comes from the collection of Benn loxo listener, DR. Thanks again, DR, for all the music. Serge Lebrasse brings us, in DR’s words, “standard hotel [...]

How would you characterize this music? Rootsy sega? “Traditional Mauritian”? Who knows.. but whatever, I like the rhythm. Two tracks today with a similar beat. We’ll call it roots sega until someone educates me. The title of the first by Ras Mayul, Ras Carosin and Zotsa translates into “the heritage of our ancestors”. [...]

Today we’ll hear some more reggae-ragga urban island music from Mauritius, courtesy of DR. Jean Clario Cateaux, a.k.a. Blakkayo, is now a member of the Otentikk Street Brothers who I featured a couple posts ago. Today’s tracks come from another cassette submitted by Benn loxo reader, DR: Blakkayo’s 2000 release, Tcheck To Life. I love the description of [...]

Benn loxo reader, DR, came through huge with a collection of cassettes that he picked up in Mauritius a few years ago. The first music we’ll hear from his collection is by another leading Mauritian rap group, MonAster. Today’s second track, Bikini, is more your standard tropical hiphop outing, while the first, Pour Toi, has [...]

You see that picture to the left? All Mauritian. Aside from the dozen albums I’ve received digitally, those are the tapes and CDs that people have lent me or that I’ve picked-up over the last couple weeks. Obviously I can’t afford to buy 30 albums for every X country week, so these [...]

Thanks to lots of great Mauritian music submitted by Benn loxo listeners I’ll be back with a second Mauritius week tomorrow morning. In the meantime, let’s take a quick breather.. friend and Benn loxo listener Alex has a Monday treat for you: “Tonight I’ve found a rare track that deserves to spread among the world of African [...]

We’ll take it down a notch today.. something older, more “traditional”. Old-school sega from one of the genres early revivalists. Jean Alphonse Ravaton, a.k.a. Ti Frere, is known in Mauritius as the “king of sega”. Ti Frere was born in 1900 to a Madagascan father who was also a sega musician. He spent much of [...]

I said yesterday that today we’d “Indian.. ocean”. Music from the African side of the Indian Ocean usually doesn’t sound too (typically) Indian, but today we’ll hear the Mauritian exception. So far we’ve only heard music from Mauritius’ creole population. However, the majority of Mauritius’ population are descendants of people from the Indian subcontinent. [...]