When your car is stopped by a corrupt cop on a Thursday or a Friday in Lagos, Nigeria, they’ll ask you for a bribe by saying, “something for the weekend?” If you make a quick joke and have a good handshake you can usually make a new friend and get away with a full wallet.

In Abidjan, a similar exchange usually involves some talk about the cop wanting a “cup of coffee” before he gives your passport back. Again, if you pull a joke about how you only drink tea, your passport’s back in your hands.

In Senegal and Mali, where bribes aren’t as much the norm, the occasional corrupt cop is much more direct: “donnes-moi 10000 francs, boy.” On these occasions I usually just blurt out a Wolof proverb like, “su ma amoon xaalis, tabax keur” (if I had any money I would have built a house) and hope he’d laugh enough to let me pass.

I thought of these expressions today as I was sipping my coffee, waking up from a good weekend during which I found a great, new appartment. Music-wise, I needed something calming to ease me into the Monday while celebrating my good mood. Thankfully, Benn loxo listener, Henri, sent me just the tune last week.

Nahawa Doumbia is a singer from the Wassoulou region of Mali. Her style is similar to the other famous Wassoulou musician, Oumou Sangaré, except that her music tends to be a little more uptempo.

I love the guitar work on today’s track and that singing style is amazing. I find this kind of music both soothing and refreshing. Great Monday Morning Music.

Nahawa Doumbia – Sifolo

I stumbled upon a nice compilation by the Parisian label and production house, Arion, yesterday. It features a few artists and songs from various Senegalese and Malian communities, notably some nice kora by Lamine Konté and great vocal work by Mariam Diakité that accompanies Soungalo Coulibaly’s djembe drumming.

Compilations like this are good in the sense that they seamlessly mix Senegalese and Malian music, showing how the political borders have nothing to do with the cultures they enclose. The Peul, Mandingue, Fulani and even Wolof communities and their music span much of West Africa.

Both Konté and Coulibaly have had long and successful careers as ambassadors for their respective instruments and styles. Thanks to an active new generation of kora players like Toumani Diabaté, the instrument has become quite well-known outside of West Africa. It’s thanks to big-name griots like Konté and others, however, that the musical and playing styles were preserved over the years. Similarly, Soungalo Coulibaly’s djembe playing has brought it to a wider audiance, though I’m pretty sure the Baye Falls I can hear hammering away at their sheep skins right now would’ve kept the tradition alive and well for many years to come.

You can buy several of Coulibaly’s albums from Arion, and much of Konté’s music can be found at Sonodisc.

Lamine Konte – Telephonista
Soungalo Coulibaly – Jina Musa

Yesterday I featured a Rock Paper Scissors project, Bole 2 Harlem, so today I’d thought I’d explore another of their chosen groups, Tartit.

Tartit is a Tuareg group of female musicians belonging to the Kel Tamashek society. Their music sounds a like a toned-down, more rootsy Tinariwen. I love the rythms and singing style.. plus they can produce sounds in their throats that would tie mine in knots.

Like Tinariwen, Tartit has its origins in the refugee camps of northern Mali. Tartit roughly translates into union, which refers to the cultural union of the Kel Tamashek society, now spread throughout Algeria, Libya, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

Tartit’s only US release, Ichichilla, was put out by Network in 2000. You can see some cool photos of Tartit in Essakane, Mali, here. The album can be bought online at cdRoots.

One of these years I’m going to make it down to the Festival In The Desert in Tombouctou and Essakane, way up in northern Mali. Have any of you been? Maybe a few of us could split the rental cost of a 4×4 and head there for January 2008.

Tartit – Buloululba
Tartit – Holiyane Holiyana
Tartit – Hamoye

Not all Dutch-African musical ventures are a bad idea!

Fra Fra Sound are a cool Kora Jazz Trio-esque fusion band who’ve been around since the early 1980s. They started by fusing Surinamese kaseko, kawina and winti (music from everyone’s favourite Dutch ex-colony) with traditional Western jazz, but recent work has been more West African sounding, in particular their 1999 release, Mali Jazz.

They usually play as a seven-piece ensemble. While some of the tracks get a little too jazz-traditional for me, I enjoy a lot of their music. The track featured today featured a particularly good example of their command of both the instruments and rhythms of Mali.

I haven’t yet seen them live but they seem to be pretty active on the tour scene. If you’re interested, check-out their up-to-date concert listing.

ps- After much delay it’s time for some re-posts. If you have any requests for old posts that you’d like to hear please send me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Fra Fra Sound – Sosomali

Live and direct from the media center at the World Cup in Berlin, I’m back with a quick post. In a couple weeks I’ll try to do some posts from the pitch during matches involving African teams.

I remember when War Child‘s first Help compilation came-out 10 years ago. I had bought it shortly before a family camping trip in eastern Canada. Amidst the beautiful mountains of Gros Morne national park in Newfoundland, I first fell for the original version of Radiohead’s Lucky, chilled-out to Portishead’s Mourning Air, and fueled my love for The Boo Radleys. What a great album.

10 years later the Help compilations are still great and still raising money for a good cause. Originally Help was brought-out by War Child to raise money for war-town Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s amazing that the Bosnia conflict was only 10 years ago, especially when you consider that some of the countries involved are now vying for EU membership.

To quote Wikipedia, “The concept of the album was inspired by John Lennon’s comments about Instant Karma, that he wanted records to be like newspapers and be released as soon as they are recorded. Help was recorded on the Monday (4th September), mixed on the Tuesday and in the shops on the Saturday.” 2005′s Help release was recorded, produced and released in 30 hours!

Tinariwen, the Tuareg band I’ve featured at least once on this site, appears on this release. The track is typical of their style with smooth Sahel guitars, Tuareg/Western fused rhythms and laid-back singing. More on Tinariwen here and here.

ps- if any of you live in Stuttgart or Munich get in touch and we’ll meet for a weissbier.

Tinariwen – Cler Achel

I installed amaroK the other day and it’s changed my home music listening life. I’d used previous versions before, but this one integrates a musical “mood” scanner, last.fm, lyrics from multiple sources, band information from Wikipedia and much more.

I know I sound like an ad here, but I really love that I can pick a genre, say West African funk music, sort the playlist by mood and then have it auto-populate the list with new tracks it’d think I’d like. And it usually gets it right. If you use Linux and have a large music collection then give amaroK a try.

…so I was listening to Nuru Kane this morning and an album was “suggested” to me from some forgotten corner of my collection.

Lobi Traore is a Malian who plays that style of Malian blues that I’ve always liked. There’s something about the Bambara language and rhythms that mixes so well with electric guitar and that driving blues sound. The repetitive nature of Bambara music with slight changes in melody over time, scattered snare/calabash hits and occasional talking sections mid-song are all musical elements familiar to the ears of the blues listener.

Both of today’s tracks come of Traoré’s 2004 release, Mali Blue, on World Village.

Lobi Traoré – Sadiourou
Lobi Traoré – Anun ka ben

Hey, sorry I haven’t been writing lately. May is busy with all the special events at work, visitors to Paris and terasse apéros. That plus a rather depressing computer crash. Didn’t lose any music but my photos took a slight beating. Oh well, I’m over it. And none of this means that I’ve been slacking on concerts or music. Lots of good stuff to share your way in the next few weeks.

I went to the Toumani Diabaté and The Symmetric Orchestra show at Cabaret Sauvage in Paris last night. While it was a touch heavy on the extended Mande shout-out ballads, the show was great overall. I like Cabaret Sauvage as a venue, even if the acoustics aren’t the best. Good crowd, easy access to the bar, enthusiastic performance. I’d never seen Toumani Diabaté live, too, so I was in a great mood.

Toumani Diabaté is the last artist to record with Ali Farka Touré before his death and was at his deathbed three hours before he passed away. He told us last night that the last album Touré ever listened to was the Symmetric Orchestra. That’s some pretty serious praise, West African musical master-wise. That and Diabaté and Touré’s last release, In The Heart of The Moon, was one of my favourite West African releases in the last couple years. Everything this guy touches is gold as far I’m concerned.

Before the release of Boulevard de l’Indépendence, The Symmetric Orchestra had never played outside of Africa as a group. It’s comprised of several well-known solo artists from across West Africa. If you’re ever in Bamako they play every Friday at the Hogon. Was anyone else there?

Two songs today picked by none other than my brother, Ben, who’s visiting Paris this week. Africa Challenge is a Senegalese-Salsa styled “fetish” piece, the second a slow-jam about “accepting death as we do birth.”

Both of today’s tracks are off the recent Symmetric Orchestra album available all over the place.

Toumani Diabaté & The Symmetric Orchestra – Africa Challenge
Toumani Diabaté & The Symmetric Orchestra – Tapha Niang

Ali Farka Touré, one of the most internationally acclaimed artists in West African music, has died today after a long illness. He was 67.

You can read the many obits floating around the web for yourself, but personally his music had a huge influence on me. Way, way before I ever even thought of moving to West Africa – or even out of Canada – I was into Touré’s albums Talking Timbuktu, Radio Mali and Niafunké. They were a gateway into the rich world of contemporary African rock and blues, and ultimately helped shape my musical taste for the region.

Talking Timbuktu, Niafunke and In The Heart of the Moon remain some of the best West African albums in my collection. Red/Green, The River, The Source and Radio Mali are also on that shelf and get routine play on the African shuffle.

If you can believe it I was still in high school when Talking Timbuktu hit Toronto record shops in 1995. At the time I would’ve been rocking to whatever hiphop, pop, etc was cool in the mid-nineties. I’d always been into music a bit out of the norm, but Ali Farka Touré really helped me break-out of the North American sound and explore folk, blues and rock from other countries, notably Mali, Brazil, Senegal and South Africa.

I can thank Touré’s albums along with some Nigerian funk compilations I picked-up in the late-nineties for what is now nearly a 10-year obsession with world music, African in particular.

Rest in peace, grand Touré.

Ali Farka Toure – Allah Uya
Ry Cooder & Ali Farka Toure – Gomni

I picked this album at random yesterday. I figure you can never go wrong with contemporary malian acoustic guitar. As it turns out, the album is gold. Good score.

N’Gou Bagayoko recorded this album, Kulu, in Bougouni, Mali, in 2002 with the help of Frikyiwa’s “nomad” studio. This French travelling sound system has helped loads of musicians in Senegal, Guinea and Mali record quality albums in their home towns. The result is a series of albums called La musique des maquis.

Bagayoko plays his acoustic guitar as if it were a n’goni, creating a cool sound for his Didadi musical style. I also like the way they’ve incorporated ambient sounds like faint footsteps, birds, wind rustling leaves, etc, into the production. This can often sound cheesy in other contexts, but on this album it really adds to the overall feel of the music.

The track I picked features vocals by Nahawa Doumbia (his wife) who records music of her own over at French/Malian label, Mali K7. Anyone have any of her albums by any chance?

N’Gou Bagayoko – Bakari Bamba

A few weeks ago at 2005′s last poker night Olivier passed me a good mix from Vibrations magazine featuring music from No Format, a small, high-quality label out of Paris, France.

One track in particular caught my ear for African sounds. It’s appropriately by another Keita, given yesterday’s post, but with quite a different sound. Mamani Keita is a little-known female vocalist from Mali who works with musicians both at home and abroad. She has a cool fusion sound of Mali-West-Electro-Folk that I quite like.

You can buy her last album at Calabash. Or, if you can wait, you can find today’s track on Keita’s soon to be released album that will be available at the No Format site in a month or so.

Mamani Keita – Djekafo