| Ancestry in Progress | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2004 | |||
| Genre | Afropop, soul, hip hop | |||
| Label | Luaka Bop/V2 [1] | |||
| Producer | Marie Daulne, Anthony Tidd, Richard Nichols | |||
| Zap Mama chronology | ||||
| ||||
Ancestry in Progress is an album by Zap Mama, released in 2004. [2] [3] Marie Daulne, Zap Mama's leader, deemed the music "Afropean". [4]
The album peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's World Albums chart. [5]
The album was mostly recorded in Philadelphia, where Daulne worked with musicians associated with the Roots. [6] [7] It contains contributions from Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Questlove, Bahamadia, and Common. [8] [9] Daulne sings in French and English, while also employing chants from Pygmy music. [10]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [11] |
| Robert Christgau |  [1] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [12] |
| Philadelphia Daily News | B+ [8] |
| Rolling Stone | [13] |
| USA Today | [7] |
Exclaim! thought that "'Bandy Bandy', with Erykah Badu, stands out because of its polished immediacy." [14] The Baltimore Sun determined that "Daulne blends the ancient (her trademark pygmy onomatopoeic vocal techniques and chants) with the present (smoothed- out, atmospheric grooves)." [6]
The New York Times concluded: "Half of the album comes across simply as neo-soul with a Belgian accent. But the other half—especially 'Show Me the Way'—meshes Zap Mama's dizzying, ping-ponging vocal polyphony with pithy hip-hop beats and a pan-African assortment of guitar curlicues." [15] The Sydney Morning Herald opined: "Singing in both French and English, she's a breathy African Bjork one minute, an operatic Afro-funk diva the next." [16] Rolling Stone considered that "despite rap cameos and world-beat sound effects, the grooves are as bland as bad neosoul, and the songs sound like bundles of self-consciously eclectic singing." [13]
AllMusic wrote that "this is far more an urban recording, where urban pop and nu-soul are informed by worldbeat esthetics rather than the other way around." [11]