Gratien Midonet (Time Capsule), Arp Frique (Rush Hour), Meliza (Hot Secousse) Zazou Bikaye (Crammed Discs) – LISTEN to Parisian bangers, African fusion and tropical cosmic mix

Here’s a mix featuring two of the best ‘tropical’ releases last year, reissued at last by Hot Secousse (the self-titled album by Meliza) and Time Capsule (Gratien Midonet, A Cosmic Poet From Martinique 1979-1989 – check out more in the video below). Also reissued by Crammed Discs – with a bunch of new bits on digital – was Zazou Bikaye’s Mr. Manager album by the pioneering ‘world-pop’ duo. The mix explores music from countries around the world with links to France (Mali, Guadeloupe, Martinique), while including examples of Antillean zouk, makossa, mbalax and soukous – that slayed Parisian dancefloors in the 1980s by migrant musicians from Cameroon, Ivory Coast and more. Zazou Bikaye are the perfect example of the hybridity of outernational electronic heat around during this decade – with Algerian born Hector Zazou and Bony Bikaye (Belgium via DR Congo).

Also included are some other bits from Time Capsule (Island Sounds…), Mike D edited Nissodia by Idrissa Soumaoro & L’Eclipse De L’I.J.A. for Mr Bongo – but the original is present here, plus fresh productions from Spaniard Anthonius and Arp Frique (a group resurecting legends of Cape Verde). It kicks off with one of the most acclaimed reissues of last year, by Heels & Souls, of UK street-soul classic, Special Touch’s Garden Of Life.

Hats off to Heels & Souls, co-founders Ben Croft and Patrick Forrester, alongside Prime Direct Distribution, will also be donating their respective share of profits to The Black Curriculum, a social enterprise delivering Black British history programmes and teacher training to facilitate both national curriculum and wider societal changes.