It's outstanding to honor those who have made significant contributions to society. Great people ought to be honored in every way possible. The motivation behind Mariaa Siga's "Mame Bamba" tribute to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba is obvious, but there are other reasons for the song's existence as well. Poet, brave resistance fighter, and nonviolent theist Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba founded the Mouridist and Touba movements. That aspect of...

There's a curious jolt in hearing a title like "Us Against The World" from an act called The Cockney Cowboy. The name itself is a glorious contradiction, a pairing of gritty East London reality with the wide-open romance of Nashville. You half expect a joke, but what Justin Vella delivers is a dead-serious, straight-shooting country ballad that smells less of hay bales and more...