***1/2 Various Artists

KWANZAA PARTY

(Rounder)

"Where are the drums?" was the most common question asked of executive producer Eric V. Copage when the first Kwanzaa collection came out last year. He continues to resist the Afrocentric kitsch that could have easily turned this into the folksy black equivalent of a Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas album. Instead, he demonstrates how one of the most horrible crimes of the past 500 years -- the African diaspora -- has also resulted in a musical heritage that is among the greatest testimonies we have to human will, culture, and spirit.

Kwanzaa Music (1995) was grounded in some famous black music highlights from three or four continents over the past 25 years; this volume focuses on lesser-known lights, and the virtuoso effect is even more stunning. Village Voice and National Public Radio contributor Daisann McLane helped choose the 14 selections from myriad potential soul, blues, Latin, Caribbean, and Afropop discs. If she has trouble coming down easy to end the album after Orchestre Super Mazembe's nine-and-a-half-minute "Shaure Yako," that's less a mark against her than a testimony to the ecstatic heights reached by that East African masterpiece. How do you come down easy after orbiting the stratosphere?

-- Franklin Soults