1.Lagos International Jazz Festival
Africa’s most populous city plays host to the annual outdoor Lagos Jazz
Festival every November, as the dry season begins. In true bombastic
Nigerian style, the month of November has accordingly been named Jazz
Month, and festivities around the mammoth event have been dubbed the
Jazz Series. The three-day festival has been inviting international and
Nigerian jazz aficionados to its stages since 2010 and previous artists
have included Hugh Masekhela, Morrie Louden and jazz heavyweights Four play.
2.Asabaako Music Festival
Asabaako Music Festival in beachy Busua is Ghana’s fledgling foray into
the international festival arena. The festival hosts DJs from Ghana,
Europe and the USA and features everything from frenzied YouTube
sensation Azonto dancing to London afrotronica, with a single purpose in
mind: keep it African. The jungle stage uses Busua’s unique proximity
to the unchartered African wild to throw a mega-bush party at the end of
every festival.
3.Sauti Za Busara
East Africa’s No. 1 festival brings people together in celebration of the richness and variety of African music.
Everything about Stone Town speaks of antiquity except Sauti Za Busara Music Festival, now in its 10th
year. Thousands flock from all over the world to experience partying in
the forts, amphitheaters and historic buildings that make this island
city a big tourist hit through the seasons. The two hundred musicians
provide most of the allure, but African music documentaries, traditional
ngoma song and dance, fashion shows, dhow races, open-mic sessions,
after-parties and orchestras are also included in buzz of activities.
4.Rift Valley Festival
Music festival could just as easily meet safari in this magical
adventure tour of one of Africa’s most attractive areas. Taking place on
the shores of endless Lake Naivasha deep in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley,
the aptly named festival drew around 5000 people in 2011 and is billed
as a ‘musical experience in the cradle of humankind.’ While afrobeat
dominates the bill, internationals such as DJ Yoda have also graced the
stage in the event’s 3-year history.
5. Bayimba International Festival
The Bayimba International Festival of the Arts is without a doubt
Uganda’s number one music festival. Curated by the local Bayimba
Cultural Foundation in capital city Kampala, the festival seeks to serve
as a platform for artistic expression and creative entrepreneurship as
well as give festival-goers an insight into the throbbing culture of the
equatorial nation. In the past 5 years the festival has grown from 100
to 55 000 guests, and has progressively included more foreign nationals
on the bill, which refreshingly features R&B, urban and jazz as well
as familiar lashings of afro-beat and comedy.
6.Mawazine
Mawazine (“Rhythms”) is one the world’s biggest music festivals. Past
Mawazine festival acts have included international heavyweights Mariah
Carey, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Whitney Houston, Lenny Kravitz, LMFAO and
Evanescence. The city of Rabat in Morocco plays host to this juggernaut
of global pop culture for the 12th time in 2013, and will be
headlined by 10-time Grammy award-winner George Benson. The
star-studded 9-day festival is free to many, and routinely attracts
numbers of up to 1 million people.
7.Oppikoppi
Oppikoppi is one of South Africa’s longest running outdoor music
festivals. Taken from the Afrikaans phrase meaning ‘on the hill’,
Oppikoppi is credited with kick-starting the South African rock
revolution in the late 90s. Still staged atop a hill 18 years later, the
festival now boasts artists of all genres, including rock, hip hop,
hardcore, punk, ska, folk, blues, drum ‘n bass, big beats, funk, kwaito,
jazz, traditional, world music, metal and indie, and attracts around
20,000 campers annually.
8.Festival sur le Niger
Perhaps misleadingly, Festival sur le Niger takes place not in Niger
itself but along the banks of the vast Niger River in Segou, Mali. The
main stage is positioned with the river as a backdrop. The festival is
rich in cultural and high-energy African traditional dance music. Masks,
costumes and animals are not uncommon in the crowds. Previous artists
in the festival’s 9-year history have included Fema Kuti, King Mensah,
Amadou & Mariam, and Oumou Sangare.
9.Festival d’Essaouira
Held annually in the Moroccan town of Essaouira, FDE is an international
world music event featuring over 30 acts from Morocco and beyond. Known
to some as “Morocco’s answer to Woodstock”, the coastal town has
achieved fame as a cultural getaway with its enchanting maze of streets
and beautiful beaches. The festival has been running for the past 15
years. While the local youth are drawn in by international acts like
France’s electro-rock export Nasser, foreign visitors will be
snake-charmed by the abundance of traditional and mystical Ghawa music
on the bill.
10.Festival au Desert
The 2013 Freemuse Award for Freedom of Musical Expression went to
Festival au Desert in Mali, which, as music festivals go, is about as
aptly named as can be. With origins in the trading meetings between the
Toureg nomads, the festival has been oozing authenticity and gradually
opening doors of the unstable region to the Western world since 2001.
Expect camels and breath-taking sunsets in the arid festival site two
hours from Timbuktu, and bring your own tent.
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