The ethnic-flavored Putumayo clothing chain had long favored in-store
soundtracks of light-textured world music. It was natural that CEO
Dan Storper should decide to branch out into the music business, and the label is now respected for its genre compilations and single-artist releases and envied for its impressive sales volume. However, in the beginning, the label's level of taste had not yet evolved past safely exotic, mundane
pop. Consequently, this set is a reasonably accurate snapshot of lowbrow African pop music during the early '90s. Given the present trend toward well-crafted electric mixes and acoustic or traditionally based singer/songwriters, a lot of the material now sounds relatively crude and naive. Studio shortcuts often overwhelm musicianship; thus, drum machines and synthesizers are overused to the point of blandness or worse. Congolese
soukous, one of the world's great dance grooves, is reduced to a twitch and a wiggle. Throwaway
reggae had become so ubiquitous that the real thing was nearly driven underground, so there's some of that here too. Obviously, any accurate compilation from this time would have to reflect these horrors, but would also express the dizzy optimism of enthusiastic, sweaty interracial crowds dancing the night away in perfect amity. These absurd "African
disco" tracks bring back a time when having fun was more important than making a profound statement and only musicologists worried about authenticity. Since then, a musical happy medium has been reached, but the insouciant good-time ambience that is captured here along with the well-meaning howlers is probably gone forever. ~ Christina Roden, All Music Guide
