| Beat the Border | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1993 | |||
| Length | 41:37 | |||
| Label | Real World [1] | |||
| Producer | David Bottrill, Bob Ezrin | |||
| Geoffrey Oryema chronology | ||||
| ||||
Beat the Border is the second album by the Ugandan musician Geoffrey Oryema, released in 1993. [2] [3] Oryema supported the album by playing the 1993 WOMAD Festival. [4]
The album was produced by David Bottrill and Bob Ezrin. [5] [6] Oryema sang in Acholi and English. [7] Brian Eno, Manu Katché, and Ayub Ogada contributed to the album. Jean-Pierre Alarcen played guitar; Oryema played a seven-string nanga. [8] [9]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [10] |
| The Tampa Tribune | [11] |
The Gazette wrote that "'Kel Kweyo', 'Lapwony' and 'Lajok' are stunning examples of modern African pop at its best," but noted that Oryema may regret "his own creative concessions with the Real World gang." [12] The Edmonton Journal determined that Oryema's "soft, English delivery, gentle, funky beats and melodic hooks offer the most easily accessible sounds on the [Real World] label." [13]
The Press-Enterprise opined that "Oryema's golden voice hovers like a mythic bird over songs that play like shafts of light and rhythm falling on the floor of a rainforest." [14] The Tampa Tribune concluded that "the singer's rich vocals—alternately deep and soaring—are the continuous, seductive cord around which this variegated music is wrapped." [11]
AllMusic wrote: "This highly creative mix of Ugandan songs and laid-back rock should have been a disaster, since the genres meet on the field of ambient dreams ... But expat Ugandan Geoffrey Oryema neither tries mainstreaming African sources to fit rock fissures nor piles extra beats and instruments on the heads of reluctant Western forms." [10] The Toronto Sun listed Beat the Border as the 8th best album of 1993. [15]
WOMAD is an international arts festival. The central aim of WOMAD is to celebrate the world's many forms of music, arts and dance.
Real World Records is a British record label specializing in world music. It was founded in 1989 by English musician Peter Gabriel and original members of WOMAD. A majority of the works released on Real World Records feature music recorded at Real World Studios, in Box, Wiltshire, England.
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Geoffrey Oryema was a Ugandan musician. In 1977 after the murder of his father, Erinayo Wilson Oryema, who was a cabinet minister in the government of Idi Amin, he began his life in exile. At the age of 24, and at the height of Amin's power, Oryema was smuggled out of the country in the trunk of a car.
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