Popular music doesn't get much richer or more diverse than in Mali, which includes solo string instrumentalists, percussion ensembles, wailing bluesy vocalists, acoustic-guitar pickers, electric guitar dance bands and suave rappers dressed in African mudcloth.
Start with the singers. Mali is a country deeply devoted to the traditions of its major ethnic groups—Mande, Bambara, Peul, Soninke, Songhai, Tamaschek and others. But the coming of age of its popular music has seen the rise of singers who merge or completely transcend ethnic genres. First and foremost is the golden-throated Salif Keita, a nobleman who broke with custom to become a singer in the late '60s, produced a landmark recording, Soro, that set a new bar for all African pop musicians in the mid-'80s, went on to receive two Grammy Award nominations and remains the most successful and well-known Malian musician in the world today. In Keita's wake, a new generation of singers has felt free to mix and match tradition and modernity. Habib Koite and his group Bamada deliver polished and soulful pan-Malian pop. Rokia Traore and Adama Yalomba have made similar fusions, rich with the sound of Mali's traditional harps, lutes and xylophones but accessible to listeners everywhere through their friendly and emotionally rich song craft.
Mande music carries within it a millennium of history. Mande griot singers once dominated the music scene, but since Mali's independence they have faced growing competition. It began when 1970s electric dance bands like the Super Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs began combining local traditions with rock, funk, blues, Afro-Cuban music and reggae. In the '80s, the technical difficulty of recording large bands led to the rise of drum machine and keyboard productions featuring a singer and a few key instrumentalists. Mande singers like Tata Bambo Kouyate, Ami Koita and Nainy Diabate began to get competition from rising stars in other traditions, such as Bambara divas Nanou Cool and Djeneba Seck and especially so-called Wassoulou music.
Wassoulou is the name of a region in southern Mali and northern Ivory Coast where a population of nomadic Peul people became stranded centuries ago. They adapted Bambara language but kept aspects of their original culture, including mystically charged hunter's traditions wherein the deep-toned, six-string donso ngoni (hunter's harp) accompanied singers of sacred songs. In the '60s, young musicians cast off cultural prohibitions and created a smaller, secular version of the instrument, the kamele ngoni (young man's harp). When combined with local recreational percussion and dance music, and powerful vocalists like Coumba Sidibe and Kagbe Sidibe, these elements coalesced as Wassoulou music. The genre broke wide in 1989 when a young singer named Oumou Sangare released her first cassette, Moussoulou, a bold set of songs playfully advocating a rethinking of arranged marriages, polygamy and other practices that she felt victimized women. Sangare's songbird voice and subtle musical arrangements quickly made her a star beyond Mali's borders, and she remains one of the country's most important musicians today. Meanwhile other Wassoulou singers like Sali Sidibe, Ramatou Diakite, Nahawa Doumbia, Ko Kan Sata Doumbia and Yoro Dialo compete for the favor of the home audience.
Malian music is characterized by a striking predominance of women singers. This is true across ethnic genres, in popular and traditional music, and it marks a distinct contrast with neighboring countries like Guinea, Senegal and Niger. When it comes to instrumental prowess, men tend to reign, including kora (21-string harp) virtuosos Toumani Diabaté, Mamadou Diabaté and Ballake Sissoko, ngoni (spike lute) dynamo Basekou Kouyaté and guitar pickers like Djelimady Tounkara, Bouba Sacko and Mali's most celebrated ax-man, Ali Farka Touré. Visitors to Mali have remarked that it seems everyone in Mali plays at least a little guitar, and the best pickers are absolutely world class.
The late Ali Farka Touré enjoys a special reputation because his music bears evident echoes of American blues. Actually, Touré always said it was the other way around. In the blues, we hear echoes of Africa, more precisely the north of Mali. Touré hailed from the Timbuktu region in the southern reaches of the Sahara Desert, a land of camels, turbaned Tuareg nomads, water spirits and deep history. He worked throughout his 66 years to promote the cultures of the north at a time when they were often neglected in Mali's southern capital, Bamako, seat of political and media power. But Touré went to his grave in 2006 knowing that that had changed. His protégé, Afel Bocoum, had by then followed him to a successful international career, and other northern groups were getting notice, like Timbuktu's Haira Arby, "nightingale of the north," and especially, Tinariwen, an exciting Tuareg folk-rock guitar band that started in a refugee camp in the '80s and is now one of the most talked about acts in Malian music.
Other ethnic traditions are also finding their place in the panorama of contemporary music. Guitarist-singer Lobi Traore is winning fans with his raw, blues-edged ballads and rowdy, percussion-driven grooves. Issa Bagayogo has done well with his sophisticated blend of Wassoulou roots, techno and house music. And of course, hip-hop has arrived in Bamako. Rappers like Tata Pound and Les Escrocs are not widely known internationally, but they are shaking up the Malian scene, speaking candidly about subjects their predecessors were afraid to take on, like the downsides of polygamy and the scourge of government corruption.
Today, more Malian musicians are signed to international recording labels than those of any other African country. Some say that reflects the country's longstanding cultural supremacy in the region. Others point to the countries deep ties to American blues, rock, jazz and folk through the history of the West African slave trade. What is sure is that the music is seductive and powerful on many levels, an inspiration to aspiring artists all over the world. – Banning Eyre, Courtesy Afropop Worldwide: www.afropop.org
