New jams: Afrobeats a capella etc (The Joy, Burna Boy), Nubya Garcia, Shannon Lay, Liana Flores, Manu Chao, and that already indelible MJ Lenderman single

June + July sounds worth your attention

Certain albums echo down years across vast seas. Graceland is certainly one, and a big part of it was the South African soul singing of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Their root stock came from gospel and Zulu song traditions — mbube, isicathamiya and mbaqanga — and the music flickered with elements of doo-wop and R&B. The Joy, an a cappella vocal quintet, are five guys from Hammarsdale township SA who met in school choir and just dropped a startlingly beautiful debut LP. Check the album’s sole English-language song, above — a lover’s prayer that’ll take you there.

The Joy were weaned on Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but grew up in the 21st century, so you’ll hear different references. The album’s just their voices, no instruments, tracked in real time with no overdubs — though any production approach yielding maximum power and gorgeousness is the best one, as far as I’m concerned. I co-sign this one.

The Joy don’t really fall under the umbrella of Afrobeats, the African/ African diasporic pop export that’s been exploding for the past decade. But rising seas lift all boats, to use a climate-change damaged metaphor. And the Afrobeat renaissance is part of a continuum, one I riffed on for a Pitchfork Sunday Review about King Sunny Ade’s Juju Music a while back. Like most gold rush pop trends, including “classic” rock, punk, and golden-era disco (trust me young nostalgists, I lived it), there’s a ton of formulaic junk, even if it doesn’t involve AI, which some of it probably does. But the best is delicious. I’m partial to the (primarily) South African amapiano, whose breakout crossover star is Tyla. I wrote about her debut album in Rolling Stone recently, and you’ve maybe heard her steamy “Water,” a signature summer jam last year in some circles. I’m still waiting to hear the great motherland summer jam of 2024 — post if you have a worthy candidate. For now, here’s a brand new track by Burna Boy, maybe the biggest and by my measure the most musically interesting of the West African Afrobeat giants. It’s more a social media post than a song (music starts at 1:20), but it’s a touching one.