Womad festival review – wildly entertaining treasure trove for adventurous music fans
Radically inclusive global lineup includes Sampa the Great’s feminist pizzazz, Young Fathers’ twisted genre-splicing and Bixiga 70’s full-tent conga
March 2024
Perfect pitch: the 2024 UK music festivals you can still book now
We may not be able to guarantee the sunshine, but British summer time always means great live music. Grab your spangly cowboy hat – these are the best fests to visit this year
July 2023
Womad review – more music festivals need this vitality, daring and breadth
Quirky, brilliant and politically forthright acts from over 40 countries, among them Femi Kuti, Susana Baca, Souad Massi and 47Soul, grace the festival’s 41st edition
March 2023
Other lives
Walton Dangarembizi obituary
Other lives: Music promoter who was also a DJ and drummer, and ran a club at the Africa Centre in London
August 2022
Womad festival – Gilberto Gil helps celebrate 40 years of blazing trails
The international arts festival returned after a two-year absence with a triumphant celebration of music and dance from around the world
July 2022
‘We like the sound of PVC tubing’: Fulu Miziki, the band who make music out of trash
From the Guardian archive
The first Womad festival reviewed – archive, 1982
June 2022
The reader interview
Post your questions for the Flaming Lips’s Wayne Coyne
As the psychedelic pop band prepare to play Womad, their frontman will take on your questions about their nearly 40-year career
April 2022
Field of dreams: the best music festivals still available to book
Big hitters such as Glastonbury may be sold out but – from an Afrobeats party in Portugal to Lil Wayne in a Cambridge orchard – there’s a huge variety of outdoor events out there to brighten your summer
June 2021
Organisers blame government as Womad festival cancelled again
Peter Gabriel: festivals risk ‘losing everything’ without government insurance
May 2021
Nick Page obituary
Guitarist, composer and producer nicknamed Count Dubulah who was a co-founder of Transglobal Underground
July 2020
20 iconic festival sets
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Womad 1985: the qawwali star invokes rapture
Revellers on Essex’s Mersea Island were transfixed by the sheer spiritual power of Khan’s first performance outside south Asia
April 2020
Womad 2020 cancelled due to coronavirus pandemic
Festival co-founder Peter Gabriel said many artists billed to play this year’s festival have pledged to return in 2021
March 2020
Womadelaide festival 2020: mariachi, Mavis and the sounds of Mali – in pictures
Ustad Saami’s ‘mind-boggling’ album God Is Not a Terrorist: ‘It’s superhuman’
July 2019
Womad festival review – polyphony and politics in global soundclash
The music essay
'So flawed and problematic': why the term 'world music' is dead
April 2019
Alan James obituary
Maverick concert programmer and manager with an impressively eclectic taste in music
March 2019
Womadelaide 2019: Christine and the Queens dazzles amid smorgasbord of sound
More than 75 acts performed over four packed days in a world music festival that continues to push boundaries and open hearts
