You can make
good music with a few standard ingredients. If you lay down an intricate drum track, deliver a pitch-perfect vocal with the third and the seventh of the chord for backup harmony, and hire the best Nashville studio guitarist for your solo, you, technically speaking, just completed the exercise as it was outlined on the test. However,
great music is ruled by a factor that's far more difficult to bottle -- namely honesty, or soul, or heart, or whatever you want to call it. How do you define this? Where does it come from? Can you buy it? How much is it?
So where does Boubacar Traoré's honest, soulful, heartfelt music come from? In the tradition of musical greats such as Muddy Waters, Bob Marley and Johnny Cash, Traoré has led a long life of personal ups and downs. He experienced decent national fame in his native Mali, with a few hits during the '60s, particularly his "Malian Twist". His recognition garnered him an identity, but no money, so he returned to his hometown and gave up music to eke out a living as a tailor and a farmer. He married, had eleven children, watched five of them die, and was discovered again in the '80s, but just as he was about to break through, his wife died, and he again disappeared, this time to France, where he provided financial support for his children.
Kango Magni's nine songs, recently recorded in Bamako and Paris, carry the baggage of Traoré's life, both good and bad. He channels his life experience into a layer of invisible content that you can feel in every song. From the first few minutes of opener "Djonkana", it's obvious that Traoré wears his heart on his sleeve. He meekly vocalizes his message about jealousy with a casual, conversational, borderline-cracking tone, though he does it with the air of an optimist in the midst of a tragedy. The non-glossy production, "first-take" performances (some of them were) and minimal ensemble (Traoré on guitar and a couple of friends on harmonica and percussion) reflect his mood, creating a campfire or back porch aesthetic. On the anti-war anthem "Kongo Magni", he slows the tempo into a bluesy swing and (relatively speaking) busts loose on guitar, adopting a mix of Robert Johnson and a sleepy Jimi Hendrix, but speeds up and changes meter as his passion for the subject grows. You don't have to understand the French lyrics, or even know his life story, to feel the conflicting sentiments in "Dounia Tabolo", as Traoré laments his wife's passing and celebrates his latest granddaughter's birth. The exultant, distinctly West African closer, "Sénékéla", pays tribute to Malian farmers who "make up 80 percent of the population and greatly contribute to their country's food self-sufficiency". Sigh.
In the liner notes for "Horonia", Traoré writes, "We must live freely and self-sufficiently, without supervision, while remaining honest and retaining our dignity." He has lived by this mantra himself, and as trivial as it sounds, he has paid his dues. Fortunately, he's now at a point in his life where he can live in peace, feel free (financially) to make music, and allow the world a glimpse into his storied life.
