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CD Review
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Made Loud, CD Review >>
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba - I Speak Fula
The practice of music consumption relies on short memories and attention spans, and we tend to forget that musicians themselves are part of a long heritage reaching back to the dawn of civilization. Bassekou Kouyates & Ngoni Ba’s new album I Speak Fula, released on a new Sub Pop subsidiary called Next Ambiance, isn’t as grand in its scope, but it reminds Westerners of the lineage of pop music in the United States. Afropop is a vibrant and diverse genre that continues to build steam and attract attention from outside the continent. Right now, Mali is the hub around which the wheel spins, and Bassekou Kouyate is its most promising ambassador.
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba are a modern band built around ancient musical traditions. The ngoni is a small stringed instrument ancestral to the banjo, and its history is deeply entwined with Mali and West Africa. It would be a gross oversimplification to say that African artists are making their music more accessible to Western audiences, as aside from perhaps China’s coast, West Africa is the most culturally and economically dynamic region of the world. Rokia Traore, Vieux Farka Toure, Youssou N’dour, and Kouyate are forging new and eloquent ways of expressing their heritage by assimilating Western styles that owe their genesis to the Diaspora. I Speak Fula is the next big step the reverse lineage begun by the great Fela Anikulapo Kuti in the fifties. Where James Brown and Miles Davis inspired Fela, Leadbelly and Jimi Hendrix inspire Bassekou.
From its first notes, it should be clear that Kouyate has young European and American listeners in mind. The tempo is faster and the bass rhythm more prominent than his 2007 release Segu Blue. Through the dense poly-rhythms, themes emerge and hook the listener into a vast and beautifully expressive savannah full of passion, joy, and pain. I Speak Fula is not a far departure from 2007’s Segu Blue, but thankfully that album is an instantly enjoyable pop record with plenty to hear the second and twentieth times. The first three songs on I Speak Fula might be the best Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba have ever recorded. Each is a high energy rock song brimming with virtuosic musical craftsmanship. “Musow - For Our Women” best demonstrates the talents and ambitions of Bassekou as he plays an ngoni solo with a wah-wah pedal, and also display the expressive prowess of his wife and vocalist Amy Sacko.
Fula is a West African language, which like most cultural phenomena in Africa doesn’t fit nicely into the colonial partitions that are now national boundaries. The very fact that N’goni Ba uses guitar straps and plays standing up is a radical departure from the griot tradition. The album’s title is a deliberate move to de-emphasize boundaries musical and political. I Speak Fula reaches out to the disparate and sometimes contentious factions of West Africa while branching out to incorporate elements of bluegrass, rock, and blues. African music is a social medium. In a village without electricity, music is a gift for and by the community. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba are expanding their community across continents.
For all the political subtext this critic interprets, I Speak Fula remains a deeply solemn and musically potent record. After four up-tempo tracks the album settles back into songs that sound more like Segu Blue. “Bambugu Blues” immediately conjures images of the slow heat of the Mississippi delta and human toil. Bassekou Kouyate not only speaks Fula, he speaks the common musical language human experience. 04/12/10 >> go there
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