Sawa Sawa Sawale

The best part about this Ethiopian remix of a Nigerian hip-hop song based on Cardinal Rex's "Sawale" is that it's ultimate origins lie in Cuba. "The Peanut Vendor" or "El Manicero," a Cuban classic from the early 20th century features the exact same rhythm and similar guajeo. Thus, an old Cuban song with Afro-Cuban rhythms traveled across the Atlantic and influenced Nigerian highlife musician Cardinal Rex's "Sawale" from the 1960s, which is one of my all-time favorite West African songs. If this does not exemplify the broader Black Atlantic world of music transculturation, I do not know what else does. The African diaspora from Cuba and the Caribbean's music returns to the source, West and Central Africa, and then spread to Ethiopia and other regions of the continent. Cuban son, rumba, beguine from Martinique, Haitian kompas, American funk and soul, and jazz have transformed the music of a continent. Listen to a mambo-era recording of "El Manicero" by a Cuban here.

Also, "El Manicero" has been used for other West African highlife musicians, too, such as this one.