Arby brings African music to Bourbon Theatre

By NICK FRENCH / For the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, May 10, 2012 11:20 pm

Concertgoers at the Bourbon Theatre on Saturday will hear a taste of the past as the Grandmothers of Invention, former members of the legendary Frank Zappa-backing band Mothers of Invention, take the stage.

But before that will be the worldly music of internationally known singer Khaira Arby. Born in a small Saharan village just north of Timbuktu, Mali, Arby was raised into a dense yet varied ethnic landscape to which she credits her earliest fascinations with African music. Her father was of Berber descent, and her mother Songhai.

"That is the case for many families in Timbuktu," Arby said in a translated interview. "I first began singing as a little girl. It was in my heart, and as I grew older I just had to keep singing. There are many ethnicities there, and the culture does not come from any single one."

Aesthetically Arby's music is evidence of this, meshing conventional Saharan instrumentation like the calabash and ngoni with more modern desert-blues takes on upstroke electric guitar set to rhythmic, reggae-like bass lines. Her lyrics are written in Arabic, Songhai, Bambara, and Tamashek as well as in other indigenous tongues.

"I keep listening to all kinds of music and keep in touch with young people," Arby said. "I'm always surrounded by my children and what they're listening to. There are four musicians (on this tour), and they're all under the age of 30."

Most important, Arby's songs prove a poignant statement of the political and cultural oppressions facing women, particularly in the Islamic realm. A Muslim, Arby divorced her husband to pursue a career in music, a path he vehemently opposed, she said.

"Right now our homeland is in tragic circumstances," Arby said. "My songs represent people who do good things. They're about women and the hard life women have to endure no matter where they live, but especially in Africa. They are the ones who raise the families and keep the house."

On her fourth American tour, Arby hopes her music will serve as a medium to alert the Western world of the struggles confronting her homeland, which some say is approaching a civil war.

"I'm coming to America with a heavy heart because of the hard situation in my country," Arby said. "I hope the West will help us. We do not want your guns and we do not want armies. We want help to rebuild schools so that our girls and all our children can get educations. We want peace most of all."

Arby said she relishes the chance to play in America, not only to promote change abroad, but also to entertain contrasting cultures of people.

"The audiences here really appreciate the music even if they don't know what I'm singing about. So that is very gratifying. It's not about sitting in a theater and watching something being presented. It's about everyone being a part of the music."