At the age of 49, prolific composer Alexandre Desplat is widely admired on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s in the running for an Oscar for best original score for Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox.

Only a few months after recording a first album together, In the heart of the Moon, Toumani Diabaté and Ali Farka Touré were back in the studio in London for another...

The Gainsbourg family are hard to escape this spring: Charlotte’s album is coming out in the United States, where her Mum recently gave a series of concerts. At the same time, the biopic of Serge’s life looks set to dominate European cinemas.

Tamikrest’s debut album Adagh is named after the Adagh des Ifoghas – one of the most beautiful regions of the Sahara – and demonstrates the new energy of the young Tuareg generation.

Rock four-piece Luke have resurfaced with a fourth album, D’Autre Part – not quite as catchy as their previous effort, but more finely crafted. ...

On his latest album M20, Côte d’Ivoire native Meiway celebrates twenty years of his urban African dance music zoblazo.

Côte d’Ivoire native Meiway has thrilled Africa for twenty years now with his revolutionary zoblazo dance music. With his new album M20 celebrating this anniversary, ...

Alain Chamfort has been pretty quiet over the past five years. Today he breaks his silence with a new album entitled Une vie Saint-Laurent ...

Faudel’s new album Bled Memory highlights the singer’s dual culture, as well as his love of the old Maghreb standards. And yet this return to his roots ...

Following a long stay in Jamaica which triggered his initial success, French singer Pierpoljak is now back with a new album, Légendaire sérénade, ...

Thirteen years after his last album under the name Pigalle, François Hadji-Lazaro releases Des Espoirs. Not so much a comeback, more a continuation, explains François.

Almost three years after the release of his debut album, Bibi Tanga is back in the news with an excellent follow-up: Dunya. On this second album, ...

With his guembri (traditional string instrument) always to hand, the Senegalese Nuru Kane looks back over his years in London on his second album Number One Bus. ...

Recorded among the dunes of the Sahara, Smaa Smaa is the second album from Algerian singer and musician Hasna El Becharia, ...

In a culture still largely dominated by men, the Algerian Hasna el Becharia has succeeded in making a name for herself far from her corner of the Sahara where she long lived. ...

Following the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti on 12 January, music celebrities around the world have organised benefit concerts and compilations to help survivors.

Django Reinhardt, whose 100th anniversary falls today, bestrode the first half of the 20th century like a musical colossus. A guitarist and jazz player of international renown...

Django - like Miles, the prolific "manouche" guitarist was famous enough to go by his first name alone - did not just embody the spirit of Gypsy jazz, he was Gypsy jazz. ...

Benin native Angélique Kidjo has released her second album, Õÿö, reflecting the broad range of influences that made the artist what she is today. ...

It’s been over a year now that Hindi  Zahra has been tipped as the next big thing in world music. Her impressive debut album, Hand made, is out now. ...

Seventeen years after his last live appearance, Jacques Dutronc is back on stage, his trademark nonchalance still very much in evidence. Although he performs no new material, the old hits ...

Two events will further buoy the prolific career of Senegal’s local hero Youssou N’Dour this spring: the releases of his new album Dakar-Kingston (8 March), a homage to Bob Marley, ...

Rock? Soul? Blues? Pop? Not easy to place the music of Okou, this year’s first big sensation. Tatiana Heinz and Gilbert Trefzger blur the boundaries ...

It has not been easy to pinpoint Nilda Fernandez, whose music has flitted from Russia to the Caribbean and French to Spanish. Now he is back in the fold with his superb eponymous album, ...

Two weeks before Gainsbourg (vie héroïque, a heroic life), directed by  Joann Sfar, hits the big screens, the original soundtrack is being released as a double CD, featuring actors  from the film along with Dionysos, Nosfell and Emily Loizeau…

Less than a year after his album Duos, the dashing eighty-something-year-old has released Charles Aznavour & the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and a new book of memoirs.

Although the Congolese musician and ambience creator Awilo Longomba is son of Vicky, known among other things as the voice of OK Jazz, the style he made his name with on the African continent is a far cry from his father’s.

Les Plastiscines and BB Brunes - dubbed France's "baby rockers" when they launched their careers a few years ago - are back in the news with mature second albums.

Renaud transforms thirteen traditional Irish songs into as many new French numbers in Molly Malone, released three years after his last album, Rouge sang.

Two years after her last album 5:55 (produced by French electro-pop hipsters Air), Charlotte Gainsbourg is back in the news with an album produced by American indie rock icon Beck...

Adama Yalomba may not be well-known in Europe, but he is no newcomer to the 'world music' scene. On the contrary, the young Malian musician has accompanied an impressive number of African stars to date ...

Alan Stivell pays tribute to the sea on his new album, Emerald, celebrating the fact that Brittany's coastal position makes it "open to the rest of the world." Meanwhile, the Celtic music ...

Malian music star Salif Keïta has dedicated his new album, La Différence, to albinos, hoping that his new songs will help fight discrimination against people who, ...

Eddy Mitchell is a busy man. In a year's time, the veteran French music star will be kicking off his final farewell tour and releasing an album of new material. ...

Two years after leaving Gnawa Diffusion, the group he fronted in the 90s, Amazigh Kateb has put himself back on the music map with an excellent solo album, Marchez noir. ...

Benjamin Biolay - a singer, songwriter and composer renowned for his insatiable musical appetite - is back in the news with a bumper double album entitled La Superbe. Just two ...

Three years after his eponymous debut, Vieux Farka Touré - son of the late Malian guitar legend Ali Farka - is back in the news with his second album, Fondo. Fusing traditional ...

The most striking thing about Gérald De Palmas's new album, Sortir, is that it does not sound like an album made by one man alone. Ranging across an impressively broad ...

Armed with a remarkable voice and a belief that music is a useful weapon in the fight for freedom, Bakhan - a 29-year-old singer from Mauritania - has won himself a place in the...

Naby, one of the three finalists in the running for RFI's "Découvertes" Award 2009, presents himself as "a child of Senegal." Born in Dakar to a Guinean father and a Malian mother, Naby...