(***)
A "discovery" of David Byrne's, who at one point had the band on his Luaka Bop label, Zap Mama returns here with an eclectic world-beat affair that encapsulates its career to date. Congo-born singer Marie Daulne leads the band. The group's founder, she's a cross-cultural hybrid. She was born to an African mother and a Belgian father and grew up in Belgium before going back to explore her African roots. When she originally formed Zap Mama 15 years ago, it was an a cappella vocal group. It wasn't long, however, before it embraced hip-hop, R&B and pop and started collaborating with a number of guest musicians from those genres. Much like the band's later releases, Supermoon features a good cast of contributors, including Me'Shell Ndegeocello, David Gilmore, Michael Franti and Bashiri Johnson. In fact, the long list of musicians found in the liner notes is simply too extensive to mention in detail.

The album starts strong with the funky "1000 Ways," which benefits from a beefy bass riff courtesy of Will Lee. A funk sensibility comes through strong on other tunes, too. That includes the call-and-response number "Hey Brotha" and the slinky "Toma Taboo," which pairs Daulne's smooth vocals up against a gruff rapper. It's a world-music track that deserves airplay on urban radio. The only missteps are ballads such as title track "Affection" and "Where Are You?" which come off as saccharine despite the eclectic instrumentation involved. But that's a minor quibble with an otherwise terrific release that goes well beyond the parameters of what's generally considered world music.

By Jeff Niesel