| Ancestry in Progress | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Zap Mama |
| Cover: | Ancestry in Progress.jpg |
| Released: | 2004 |
| Genre: | Afropop, soul, hip hop |
| Label: | Luaka Bop/V2 Records[1] |
| Producer: | Marie Daulne, Anthony Tidd, Richard Nichols |
| Prev Title: | A Ma Zone |
| Prev Year: | 1999 |
Ancestry in Progress is an album by Zap Mama, released in 2004.[2] [3] Marie Daulne, Zap Mama's leader, deemed the music "Afropean".[4]
The album peaked at No. 1 on Billboards World Albums chart.[5]
The album was mostly recorded in Philadelphia, where Daulne worked with musicians associated with the Roots. It contains contributions from Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Questlove, Bahamadia, and Common.[6] Daulne sings in French and English, while also employing chants from Pygmy music.[7]
Exclaim! thought that "'Bandy Bandy', with Erykah Badu, stands out because of its polished immediacy."[8] The Baltimore Sun determined that "Daulne blends the ancient (her trademark pygmy onomatopoeic vocal techniques and chants) with the present (smoothed- out, atmospheric grooves)."[9]
The New York Times concluded: "Half of the album comes across simply as neo-soul with a Belgian accent. But the other half—especially 'Show Me the Way'—meshes Zap Mama's dizzying, ping-ponging vocal polyphony with pithy hip-hop beats and a pan-African assortment of guitar curlicues."[10] The Sydney Morning Herald opined: "Singing in both French and English, she's a breathy African Bjork one minute, an operatic Afro-funk diva the next."[11] Rolling Stone considered that "despite rap cameos and world-beat sound effects, the grooves are as bland as bad neosoul, and the songs sound like bundles of self-consciously eclectic singing."
AllMusic wrote that "this is far more an urban recording, where urban pop and nu-soul are informed by worldbeat esthetics rather than the other way around."