Check out this excellent music blog : Benn loxo du taccu  is  about African music.  The best part of the blog is that the author posts songs from different artists.  It is a great blog to read if you would like to expand your African music knowledge.

He posts on some of my favourites :

Salif Keita
Cheikh Lo

Lately, the new music service Pandora has come up amongst a few people I know.

For those who haven't tried it, Pandora is an on-line streaming music service that allows you to create a 'station' based on entering an artist or a song.  Pandora creates a playlist of songs it thinks you would like based on their similar sound and style to what you have entered.

The songs in the Pandora library have been classified by musicians and music lovers based on over 100 attributes for a song.

I really recommend trying this out to see what you think.  Its certainly an interesting idea.  The goal of Pandora is to help you find more music that you would like by putting in artists you may not know who have a similar style to an artist you do know.  In theory, this replaces your "music friend" who says, 'Hey have you heard <band name here>?  I think you would like them'.

So Pandora can create a nice playlist for you at work that is less distracting than listening to a radio stream.  Personally, I find I miss the human element.  A good dj should surprise you and Pandora never surprises you by say putting Li Ma Wesu by Youssou N'Dour after 'In Your Eyes' by Peter Gabriel.  First, because Pandora has a non-existent world music collection and second, I doubt these tracks would be considered a 'match'.

Also, I enjoy getting recommendations and playlists from friends.  It is a social activity to share music.  To have it done by a program has far less value to me.

Oh and business model : weak.  I would never pay a subscription for this service.  Would you?  There are the obvious advertising and buying click through to Amazon etc for revenue.  I'm sure Pandora is getting a piece of that.  But how many people will buy a CD or track because Pandora recommended it.  Why do I need to own it when I can just fire up Pandora?