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...And Africa still has plenty to teach Western pop, not least in terms of its business model, argues David Hutcheon.

Blur's Damon Albarn is one lucky sod. Yeah, I know you make your own luck, but straight off the back of those triumphant Blur reunion dates, he was in Paris on August 5, figureheading the first Continental European date for the Africa Express, in which the cream of one huge heterogeneous continent's musicians got to showcase their talents by jamming with high-profile British rock and pop stars.

Africans, Parisians, August, the Kooks. and a recession: It doesn't sound like a winning formula, but the sun shone, Puma stepped in with sponsorship generous enough to entice some serious names (Roots Manuva, Super Furry Animals, Vieux Farka Touré, Speech Debelle, Amadou & Mariam and Tony Allen for starters), and 15,000 turned up for a memorable free gig.

But what makes Albarn's project so intriguing is not just his ability to fill fellow musicians with the enthusiasm to experiment with the unknown. It's that he pounced upon the idea just as "our" music industry was waking up under the cosh from a peculiarly African business model. Forget the scourge of downloading, since the advent of the audio cassette recorder in the 1970s, few in Dakar, Bamako, Algiers, or Kinshasa have paid full price for any new album, and for musicians gigs have been the only reliable source of income for decades.

There is an unprecedented level of interest in music of an African origin right now: From Albarn (the word is that the new Gorillaz material has greater "world" influences). via Vampire Weekend (oh, those Southern African guitars), to the bewilderingly trendy young crowds that turn up for Afrobeat or Saharan blues shows that could once only have played to middle-aged, sit-down audiences. In Paris on the 5th, as the hour got later, the crowd became younger and younger, until there was some serious moshing going on for Congolese trancemongers Konono No 1 and rheumy Algerian raï-punk Rachid Taha.

That 2009 has been a phenomenal year for African albums is almost by the by (expect Bassekou Kouyaté, Touré, Tinariwen, and Staff Benda Bilili to make a lot of end-of-year charts), what is exciting is watching music-makers going out of their way to buck the gloom surrounding a reputedly dying industry. To put it in marketing speak, the musicians who played in Paris weren't there to promote their releases but to reinforce their brand, after overcoming obstacles that would crush pampered Western groups (visas get more scandalously expensive and harder to obtain every year).

Sure, it helps if you can tolerate a little bit of indignity: seeing Kouyaté, the great ngoni improviser, struggling to figure out what to do during Ebony Bones's was hilarious, and the look on his face suggested he would rather endure a two-day drive across Mali to play in Essakane. Yet when somebody as regal as Oumou Sangaré arrives at a gig, pen in hand and wanting to know where she goes to start signing albums, you realise European acts--more likely to use a pop career as a springboard to a lingerie line or a chat show - have a way to go to learn how to survive in the market place. Perhaps this really is Africa's time, after all.

We got both types of music at www.mojo4music.com