Ethiopian music has been growing in popularity in the past few years, but from Eritrea only deafening silence emerged. Asmara All Stars now wants to change that. For this project producer Bruno Blum (well known to reggae lovers for, among other things, his remixes of the work of Serge Gainsbourg and 'The War Album', for which he mixed recordings of the original voice of Haile Selassie with Bob Marley's 'War'), at the invitation of the Alliance Française in Asmara, travelled to Eritrea to meet some of the best (krar player Hassan Suleman) and most famous (Faytinga) Eritrean musicians. He received the cooperation of the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, without whose consent as good as nothing is possible in Eritrea. Because Blum has taken due account of the mosaic of different population groups that Eritrea is (Afar, Bilen, Hedareb, Kunama, Nara, Rashaida, Saho, Tigre and Tigrinya), 'Eritrea's Got Soul' is a sample of the cultural diversity of the country. With a mix of jazz, Eritro-gwaila (very popular Eritrean music form in which drum machines and electric krars are used) and roots reggae (a genre that seems to thrive everywhere in Africa) this album straightaway puts Eritrea on the musical map of the world, an achievement in itself. Absolute must-have!