Except for the electric guitar shredding at the beginning of Les Sympathics de Porto Novo’s irresistible “A Mim We Vo Nou We,” which also opens this compilation, and some intermitted yelps and hollers through some of the rest of the 13 tracks, African Scream Contest, Vol 2 – Benin 1963-1980 offers very little screaming as the titillating title suggests. But don’t let that empty promise deter you from exploring these rare grooves, most of which could spice up any cosmopolitan-minded DJ set. Compiled by globetrotting DJ, record collector, and label-owner Samy Ben Redjeb, Vol 2 is a 10-year-in-the-making follow up to African Screaming Vol 1, which concentrated on music from Benin and Togo. Benin get sole spotlight this time around as the country’s vandou religion functioning as its thematic binder. All of that religion’s various gods perhaps explains the multiple Motherland pulses that course through these funky tracks, many of which connect dots to outer African diasporic idioms such as rumba, samba, ska, soul-powered funk, and even disco.
