If you like Mali music, try this site for some ‘real’ stuff. The CDs are not the pre-packaged semi-western style you might be used to, but real music from real Malian players who might otherwise not get heard outside their village or area. Give it a go!
I know a lot of you guys already know this, but I am finding out what a rich source of cultural material YouTube is! Whilst trying to get together a post on a Jazz festival in Guinea in honour of the Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, who sadly died a couple of years ago, I found a lot of YouTube clips. Born in the village of Nafunke near Timbuktu he never forgot his northern Mali roots, and in fact was ignored for some time in Mali because he was regarded as a ‘northerner’. In 2004 he was elected mayor of Niafunke. He is considered the pioneer of ‘Mali Blues‘ and his jazz style is appreciated all over the world. He won 2 Grammy awards for Talking Timbuktu and again in 2006, for his album in collaboration with another famous Malian musician, Toumani Diabate, In the Heart of the Moon (both links have clips you can play).
I did a little searching. I found this interesting video of the great man, posted by pusanguy, not just playing but giving his thoughts about ‘African Americans’. I hope you find it encouraging!
Well, back to the Jazz festival. According to APA News it is being held in Guinea at the Franco-Guinean Centre. It started on 7th will end on 11th May. The Guineans are honouring Farka Toure
because had given up attending a cultural festival in Nice, France, where he was to earn €80,000, to take part in the 2nd edition of the Jazz Festival
The following link can only be listened to through YouTube, I can’t embed it. But is is such a seminal recording of Farka Toure I really wanted to bring it to your attention. It was recorded at the Segou festival in 2005. The other instrument being played is the Ngoni or xalam and is played by Bassekou Kouyate. Enjoy!
I’ve just seen a post on the African Press Association website about a new African xylophone museum to be created in Sikasso. It will be the first museum designed to preserve the heritage of the balafon, one of the famous musical instruments of the region. The Balafon is played in Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote-d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Ghana and the ‘triangle du Balafon’ festival is held in Sikasso.
Here’s a video of two Burkinabe balafonists from the collection of brunh21
Source: YouTube
Here’s another video from africanskydotorg
AfricanSky.Org presents a video short featuring a contemporary rural griot from southern Mali. Produced by Scott M. Lacy. All rights reserved, 2007.
Thanks to hoz1999 for this Salif Keita video.
The following article was seen at The Power of Culture at http://www.krachtvancultuur.nl/uk/current/2007/march/sahelopera.html
After overcoming numerous obstacles, in part due to the sudden death of the producer late in 2006, Bintou Wéré, un Opéra du Sahel finally premiered in Mali’s capital Bamako on 17 February 2007. A few reactions from the audience.
Copyright: Prince Claus Fund. Photo: Diango Cisse, Bamako
Amadou Dama, travel organiser: “Prince Claus is no longer with us, but in Africa the dead are not dead. With this opera he will stay in our hearts. Culture is stronger than war. It alone helps us overcome our daily problems. This opera shows you the power of culture. Mali was lucky to have the premiere. We should take pride in that. A spectacle of this type has never been performed here.”
Copyright: Olivier Verstraeten
Fenny Steenks of the Dutch embassy staff: “The location was beautiful. A stage was built along the Niger, Mali’s lifeline. The bridge over the Niger nearby was closed for the performance. The traffic noise and the light from the lampposts would have affected the performance. The audience was seated on chairs in an open-air theatre specially built for the occasion. The performance was presented in various local languages. From the reactions it is clear that the story of Bintou Wéré, a woman travelling with a group of men to Europe, was very recognizable. The star role was played by Djeneba Kone, a fantastic singer who will hopefully attract much attention with her performance. The Sahel Opera was a popular radio topic and there were posters throughout the city; everyone was talking about it.”
Copyright: Prince Claus Fund
Marja Oostwoud Wijdenes, travel guide: “It was beautiful to look at and the location was unique. It is fantastic to sit among the locals in the audience. Everyone sympathized intensively and made comments. My Bambara is not very good, but you could feel that they recognized the story, giving them a kind of solidarity.”
Jos Schuring
From 7 to 9 June in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ during the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, and in Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in October.
Posted by sociolingo on April 20th, 2007
The following article was seen at The Power of Culture at
http://www.krachtvancultuur.nl/uk/current/2005/october/mali.html
Music is Mali’s greatest and most important export product. In fact, the sole jewel in the crown of a country where 72% of the population live below the poverty line is its cultural heritage. Performer Rokia Traoré puts it like this: ‘All we have here is a bit of gold, the Niger river and our music. The Sahara is advancing all the time, so all we will have left is our rich and varied culture.’
Despite the many outside influences, Malian music has always managed to retain its original character. Since time immemorial, the griots and griottes have sung their songs of praise accompanied by traditional African instruments. One of these is the kora, a harp-lute made from a hollow gourd that has 21 strings strung across its neck. The blind female kora player Madina N’Diaye explains: ‘Many griots are convinced that the kora should only be played by men. They say: Women should sing but should not play any instruments. There are even people who say that I have been punished with blindness because I followed my heart and started playing the kora.’
It’s worth pointing out that these days there are other female artists in addition to Madina who don’t play by the unwritten rules. Their stance has led to them being subjected to a barrage of constant criticism. Some have to rehearse in secret, have husbands who forbid them to play or find that relations repeatedly smash up their instruments. They may even be cursed at in the street. All this is the lot of these talented Mali musicians merely because of the life that they have chosen. As their numbers are few, it is doubtful whether they could engineer social change in the short term. However, this unique type of world music is becoming more and more popular internationally, so at least they will not have to leave the stage unheard.
Merel Oord
Source: The Washington Times
70 generations guide Mali kora master
By Todd Pitman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 6, 2007BAMAKO, Mali — On a moonlit African night in a leafy open-air bar, kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate is peeling off an ethereal flood of kaleidoscopic riffs from a 21-string cow-skin covered harp like one his forefathers have played — for more than 70 generations.
Past a motley array of modern-day musicians and a phalanx of traditional drummers, a twirling 2 a.m. crowd of Bamako’s hippest has come to pay homage to a man many regard as the greatest kora player on the planet.
The music is East meets West, past meets present, a 21st century take on ancient Malian harmonies that smacks of flamenco, Far Eastern strings and the winding legato improvisations of free-form jazz.
For Mr. Diabate, the show is much more than just music: It’s the preservation of culture and tradition, a way to keep alive the spirit of the defunct Mande empire that once stretched across a vast swathe of West Africa.
Long before the region’s history was recorded in books, it was told through a caste of griots, musical storytellers. Seven centuries later, the songs are still sung over powerful rhythms and haunting pentatonic scales produced on traditional instruments like the banjo-esque ngoni, the wooden xylophone-like balafon, and kora players from Guinea to Niger.
“If West Africa was a living being, the griot would be the blood,” Mr. Diabate says over lunch at his Bamako home,
A Timbuktu Funk Affair: A Benefit Event 03/07/2007 07:39PM
Contributed by: WMC_News_Dept.
San Francisco (California), USA - The Marin-based Global Education and Action Network (GLEAN) and The Timbuktu Music Project will hold their annual fundraiser concert March 23rd at SomArts Cultural Center (934 Brannan Street – between 8th and 9th Street). Headliners will be the critically-acclaimed local favorites, Sila and the Afrofunk Experience.
Entrance to the event is $20 for adults and $10 for students, but anyone who RSVPs to timbuktufunk@hotmail.com by March 21st will be added to the guest-list and pay only $15. The all-ages event will raise funds for musical education and instruments in Mali, as well as this year’s youth expedition to West Africa, where Bay Area teens will learn about, and help document local culture, and especially music.
The night’s events will include an African buffet, a bazaar, a silent auction as well as a paintings and photographs by local artists for sale. Several African restaurants have agreed to donate their services to form a buffet, and there will also be a bar. African arts, jewelry and crafts sellers from around the San Francisco Bay Area will be selling exotic goods.For more information go to www.gleansworld.org.
The third Festival on the Niger
This festival, which will take place from 1 to 4 February 2007 in Segou. It offers a unique spectacle, with music and dance from the region, as well as well-known West-African artists, who will play on the river Niger.
This years theme will be: tourism and employment, culture and employement. So we’ll communicate a lot about job creation by tourist and cultural enterprises and its importance for sustainable economic development of Mali.
The principal program elements will be: a discussion forum (theme: young people and employment), art expositions (theme: Bogolan), tales and legends, music and dance, masks and puppets, a craft fair, and workshops.
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