World Circuit (record label)
| World Circuit | |
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| Founded | 1986 |
| Founder | Anne Hunt and Mary Farquharson |
| Genre | World music |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Official website | www |
World Circuit is a world-music record label, established in London in the mid-1980s, that specializes in Cuban and West African recording artists, among other international music stars. The label's credo was to be an artist-led label with all aspects of each release tailored to the artist. Twenty years later, this is still key to how World Circuit operate. World Circuit celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2006 by releasing World Circuit Presents..., a 2-disc retrospective compilation album. Its recordings are distributed by Nonesuch/Elektra Records in the USA.
In 1986, the label released its first albums, María Rodríguez's La Tremenda and Abd El Gadir Salim's Sounds of Sudan Volume One.
World Circuit’s first taste of major success came in 1993 with the teaming of Ali Farka Touré and American guitarist Ry Cooder on the Grammy award-winning album, Talking Timbuktu. The album went on to sell over a million copies worldwide; an incredible feat for an album of its kind.
During the mid-nineties World Circuit began working with new artists, who would go on to become long-time label stalwarts. Moving away from their usual Latin and West African bias, World Circuit released the album Rumba Argelina by Spanish group Radio Tarifa. Rumba Argelina propelled them to cult fame, becoming a sensation across Europe. Another artist to make an immediate impact was Senegalese multi-instrumentalist and singer Cheikh Lô. The dreadlocked maverick’s debut album Ne La Thiass was produced by Youssou N’Dour, and is underpinned by indigenous Mbalax and Flamenco rhythms.
In 1996, Cooder was invited to Havana, Cuba by British world-music producer Nick Gold of the World Circuit record label to record a session with two African High-life musicians from Mali in collaboration with Cuban musicians. On Cooder's arrival (via Mexico to avoid the ongoing U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba), the musicians from Africa had not turned up and it transpired later that they had been unable to secure their visas to travel to Cuba.
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Wikipedia