Joyful Noise: Pop Culture in Africa

By Jenni Gate

From some of the least hopeful places on the planet comes some of the most hopeful music. Throughout Africa, the trend in pop culture is for musicians to uplift and inspire, with folk instruments, upbeat rhythms, and lyrics.  They sing of their own transitions from desolation to optimism, or give tribute to the struggles of their compatriots.

BOMBINO Photo: By Modiba Productions (CC-BY-SA-3.0)

Last week, Bombino, one of Africa’s fastest-rising musicians, released the album Nomad to critical acclaim. The album was produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and the result is mesmerizing. Omara Bombino Moctar is a Tuareg born in Niger in 1980 in the midst of cultural and political upheaval. The Tuareg are a nomadic ethnic group common throughout northern Africa from Burkina Faso to Mali, Niger, Algeria, and Libya. Due to their nomadic lifestyle, they have been the subject of violent suppression since the days of colonialism. With North African governments seeking to restrict their movements as population growth stresses the desert environment, the Tuareg have found themselves marginalized and repressed. This led to several uprisings and reprisals from the 1960s through the present. Bombino grew up in the midst of violence. His family was forced to flee Niger several times to neighboring Algeria and later to Libya. During his years in exile, Bombino taught himself to play the guitar, watching videos of Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix and others until he mastered their styles. In 2007, the government of Niger outlawed the guitar and executed two musicians, forcing Bombino to flee once again. His sound is electrifying with a voice like butter accompanying high-energy guitar and in the process encapsulating the sounds of rebellion and optimism. His music speaks of peace and rights for the Tuaregs spread throughout the Sahara.

This video about the making of Nomad includes background about Bombino and the history of the Tuareg people: 

Watch Bombino’s performance of a simple, yet beautiful Tuareg dedication song:

Listen to sample tracks from the album Nomad and discover more about this fascinating nomadic musician here: 

http://www.allmusic.com/album/nomad-mw0002494357
 

Photo: Harry Wad, CC by SA 3.0

Africa’s most inspiring musical couple is Amadou and Mariam. Amadou Bagayoko became blind at the age of 16, and Mariam Doumbia lost her sight at age 5 due to measles. Amadou and Mariam, both from Bamako, Mali, met in 1975 at an institute for the blind. They married in 1980 and began touring, recording, and playing at festivals worldwide. A 2004 collaboration with Manu Chao, a world-famous Latin musician, to produce the album Dimanche à Bamako propelled the couple to worldwide fame. Their music blends rock and blues with traditional Mali, Middle Eastern, and Indian instruments. Their French lyrics uplift and inspire, giving hope for the downtrodden of Mali. Many of their songs are love songs, like Je Pense à Toi. Themes of friendship, happiness, and community infuse their music.

In the midst of the current conflict in Mali, the couple has joined with several other musicians to speak out against the violence. See the story about this effort at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2013/01/18/169730172/watch-a-supergroup-from-mali-sing-for-peace

Je Pense à Toi:

A recent video about the current political situation in Mali:

Watch and listen to their official videos and songs here: http://www.youtube.com/amadouandmariam

Baloji. Photo: by Peter Forret, CC by 2.0

An edgy R&B rapper is making a mark on the African and European music scenes with a compelling personal story of triumph over adversity. Baloji, whose name means sorcerer in Swahili, was born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, Congo to a Congolese mother and Belgian father. When he was 3, his mother sent him to live in Belgium with his father. His father lost his fortune in Congolese investments when Baloji was 7 and deserted him. Baloji grew up in a school for delinquent children run by nuns. Angry, alienated, and out of sync with mainstream Belgian culture, he ran away at age 15 and joined a rap group. The group eventually became known as Starflam. They cut an album, Survivant, in 2001 that went platinum. Due to disagreements, Baloji quit the group in 2004, turning his back on music altogether.

Out of the blue, he received a letter from his mother who had not been in contact since 1981. His mother commented in her letter that when she sent him to Belgium she had intentionally sent him to the land of Marvin Gaye. Baloji deeply considered that musical legacy contrasted with the current condition of people in war-torn Congo. He realized that his life perspective was skewed. Rather than being a victim of a cross cultural childhood, he was fortunate to have escaped the intense poverty and violence of the Congo. When they spoke by phone, his mother asked him what he’d been doing for all the years they were apart. He produced his first solo album, Hotel Impala as a way to respond with the highlights of his life. Compelled to return to Kinshasa, a city built for 500,000 people but now home to over 12 million, he began a journey of exploration and self-discovery. Music in the Congo had not changed much in 25 years. Caught up in the feverish energy of the city, Baloji turned his confused cross-cultural identity into a strength. In just six days, he recorded the album Kinshasa Succursale with Congolese bands Konono No 1 and Zaiko Langa Langa. The album reworked several songs from Hotel Impala with several new songs, all blending Congolese instruments and rhythms. Gritty music videos were filmed on the streets of Kinshasa.

Karibou Ya Bintou (meaning Welcome to Limbo) is the signature track. It tells the tale of how he evolved from an angry young man to a music sorcerer, a creative spirit fully engaged with his cultural identity. Here is the video with English subtitles [for mature audiences only]:

Mellower sounds abound in Le Jour d’Après, which harkens back to the more constrained musical days of Independence.

If you happen to be in Britain this summer, catch a train tour called the African Express. About 80 musicians, including Amadou and Mariam and Baloji, are riding a train across country to promote the best in African music. Many of these artists have compelling personal stories, coming from war-torn areas, or overcoming lives of turmoil. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/26/africa-express-bound-for-glory

Off the Beaten Track: A Year in Mali

Our guest this week is Edith Maxwell, the author of SPEAKING OF MURDER (Barking Rain Press, under the pseudonym, Tace Baker) featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. Edith holds a PhD in linguistics and is a member of Amesbury Monthly Meeting of Friends. She also writes the Local Foods Mysteries. A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE introduces organic farmer Cam Flaherty and a colorful Locavore Club (Kensington Publishing, June, 2013). A mother and technical writer, Edith lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats. Find her at http://www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor, @edithmaxwell, and www.edithmaxwell.com. Tace Baker can be found at www.tacebaker.com, @tacebaker, and http://www.facebook.com/TaceBaker.

Mali. Home of the legendary Timbuktu, tall and gracious people, searing heat, the Niger River.

Bamako. A city of red dirt, crumbling colonial buildings next to Chinese-built skyscrapers, a winding and mysterious Grand Marche, open sewers, batiked damask cloth in gorgeous colors.

Edith and her boys

I spent a year in Mali twenty years ago with my (now-ex) husband and two small sons during my husband’s sabbatical from Boston University. We found a Belgian preschool for John David, age 2 ½ when we got there, and a French kindergarten for Allan, age 5. By the end of the year they were both fluent in French. We all picked up some Bambara, too, the first language of many Malians.

What did I do there? It was at a time in my life when I was home with my children and studying to be an independent childbirth educator. I worked on my course, taught a class to two American couples, and helped my children through culture shock. We, as most ex-pats do, hired someone to cook and clean for us. Doumbia, a wonderful local man, coaxed amazing meals out of the ancient Russian stove and washed our clothes by hand. He kept the red dust off the floors and entertained John David after his carpool dropped him off. If I had a year off at home in the United States, I’d be cleaning out closets, maybe picking up the cello again, organizing my life. But in Bamako I didn’t have those options and hadn’t yet realized I was a fiction writer.

I felt self-conscious walking our neighborhood streets. It helped immensely when I began exchanging greetings in Bambara with people who were staring at me. Ritual greetings are very important. You never just walk by and say the equivalent of, “How ya doin’?” I’ll let the book show you. My protagonist in Speaking of Murder, Professor Lauren, who served in the Peace Corps in Mali, has just ordered a meal at a Malian restaurant she discovered:

A plate laden with steaming chicken, onions, and rice arrived in front of me. I inhaled the scent of lemon and oil and thanked the proprietress. “Iniché!”

“Ntse! I ka kene wa?” The woman laughed heartily, grabbed my hand, introduced herself as Fatoumata Kone, and started the round of ritual Bambara greetings. They bounced back and forth between us until we had inquired about how the other had passed the night, how the other’s parents were, and so on, ending with a salutation of “Herebe.” Peace among us. Followed by “Here doron.” Peace only.

We all got sick a lot. In my first month there I was quite ill with an amoeba and then from the medicine. The boys came down with the local strain of chicken pox and had silver-dollar sized blisters on their backs. In January, the month John David turned three, he contracted both giardia and malaria despite the fact that we boiled and filtered our water at home. Luckily he was a sturdy boy and recovered well from both.

When the dry season hit in what in New England we call wintertime, the temperatures soared well over 100 every day. I learned to wear loose cotton clothing—the local garb of wide caftans is perfect for that climate—and walk slowly. The Harmattan winds came down off the Sahara. They blew fine red dust into all our closets and sucked the moisture out of our skin.

I was grateful to be able to travel out of town alone in the spring for a few days to visit a group of traditional midwives a full day’s journey from Bamako and hear their stories of childbirth. One of the midwives even urged me to adopt her tiny granddaughter. The baby’s mother, the midwife's daughter, had died in childbirth. I seriously considered the offer until I asked about the adoption process at the U.S. Embassy on my return to Bamako and decided, despite longing for a daughter, that it was way too complicated for our family.

The Grand Marche

The year enriched all of us. My children experienced something completely different from the rather small (and 98-percent white) Massachusetts town they were growing up in, and they had their brains stretched from learning a second and third language by immersion. I grew to love the gentle, generous, striking people we met, the flavors of hot peppers and spicy vegetable stews, moderated by the cool of a homemade ginger drink, the traditional music with djembe and kora. My husband renewed his friendship with people he had known a decade earlier when he wrote a Bambara-English dictionary. And you know what? It’s all background material now that I’m a writer.

Thanks for having me over, fellow travelers! I’d love to hear about others’ experiences in Africa, or answer questions about my stay there. Where in Africa have you always longed to go?