The weather continues hot here in Mali, as does the music. Despite being surrounded by Malian tunes, my theme-song for the last few weeks has been Third World's "96-Degrees in the Shade," a great song from a decent band. That said, Tinariwen's "Aman Iman: Water is Life" is a close second...
The Festival sur le Niger was, as far as I was concerned, a success. I saw a ton of great acts (Salif Keita, Boubacar "Kar Kar" Traoré, Rokia Traoré, Habib Koité, and Abdoulaye Diabaté, to name only the best), sat under at least a dozen of Ségou's 4444 Acacia trees (one is missing, mysteriously, on account of a nebulous "treason" that was never fully explained to me), and generally enjoyed my first trip outside of Bamako in 4 1/2 months in Mali. I've got a bunch of pictures, but my camera's acting up, so those will have to wait for the next post. My experiences with public transportation getting from Bamako to Ségou and back were appropriately hellish for W. Africa (on neither of my trips did the bus arrive less than five hours late at its destination, despite the fact that the entire drive usually only took 6 hours), but I'll spare the details. Suffice it to say, that the trip was well worth it, and I arrived back in Bamako refreshed mentally for another 4 1/2 months of sitting in a chair for 6 hours a day playing music.
Highlights of the festival included standing 10 feet from the front of the stage staring up at a beaming, sashaying Boubacar Traoré surrounded by a cloud of fog from the fog machines, then realizing that this 70-year old man's 40-year old songs had so inspired the crowd of under-20 Malians around me that they'd started a mosh pit, as well as the synchronized dance moves of Abdoulaye Diabaté and his brother, and the deafening, two-minute standing ovation when Salif Keita stepped onto the stage. I also got to spend some time with Balla Tounkara, a wonderful kora player who's recently returned to Mali after 10 years in the U.S. I'm reminded of how weird it must seem to the Malians to interact with a Bambara-speaking American whenever I chat with Balla and listen to his flawless, Brooklyn-inflected English!
I also want to give a shout-out to all my new-found friends in the Richmond Friends of Mali, with whom I spent a lot of time in Ségou. They were nice enough to find me a couch and a comped ticket to the Festival, and I tagged along with them to see some of the projects they've helped fund through their amazingly successful sister cities program pairing Ségou and Richmond. It was wonderful to hang out with such a diverse group of people, all of them passionately interested in engaging with and helping members of a society very, very different than our American one. Also, we got to meet the Mayor and the American Ambassador to Mali, which landed us all on Malian national television! Who doesn't like seeing themselves on television?
Alright, that's it for now; tune in on Tuesday for a longer post on (some of) the many, many different styles of Malian music.
No comments:
Post a Comment