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Concert Review
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MTV Iggy, Concert Review >>
SMOD @ Webster Hall
"New York, do you want to sing with Africa?"
The members of Malian hip hop trio SMOD wore Western-style street clothes while mingling with the crowd at globalFest 2012 held at New York City’s Webster Hall. But for their own headlining set in Webster Hall’s Marlin Room DJ Sam, Ousco, and Donsky opted to represent their native country through loose colorful tunics in traditional designs.
Outgoing emcee Ousco introduced the group to the audience: “Hi, everybody. We are SMOD from Bamako, Mali. Are you okay? Are you okay?” He didn’t mention that this was the group’s US debut.
Dressed in shiny embroidered pants and tunic, DJ Sam started in right away on the acoustic guitar and the over-eager audience leaped in with a completely superfluous soul clap. Evidently, SMOD’s fame preceded them. The 2011 release of their self-titled third album on Nacional Records seems to have raised their profile in the States.
Sam is the son of beloved Malian singing duo Amadou and Mariam and provides the group with its melodic heart. (Beats were provided by French friend Manu Sauvage on clavier et machine.) The guitarist and rapper looked the part of an earnest, North African hipster in heavy eyeglass frames and shell-toe sneakers, an oasis of calm with a shy smile, mediating between his two extroverted band mates. Even his freestyling had an understated quality that can only be called folk rap, but it retained a percussive role, something like a string of firecrackers going off.
On Sam’s right, in a long patchwork tunic, Ousco took the “master of ceremonies” implication of emceeing very seriously and did a lot heavy lifting necessary to truly connect with the audience. Rhyming with a gruff dancehall infection, he was naturally able to access more volume, charisma, and sheer wattage than his band mates.
To the left, Donsky was more intense than the other two, executing tightly controlled dance moves and spitting old-school rock with a raw energy that brought an atmosphere of street theater to the show. In African t-shirt and wooden Africa medallion, he completed the image of the band — in an odd way a mirror image of American-bred Afrocentric hip hop. They looked and sounded like an answer to the yearning call of ’90s-era conscious rap, like: “Hi America. It’s Africa. We got your letter!”
SMOD’s hooks are drawn from African folk music, but the members of the group are steeped in both hip hop and traditional music and their palpable depth of feeling for both makes the fusion effective and affecting. In the live show reggae rhythms not present on the album were brought into that fusion, creating a trifecta that’s becoming common in Africa. Sierra Leone’s Bajah and the Dry Eye Crew is a more bombastic example.
Speaking of call and response, Ousco could not be happy while the audience was mainly watching the performance. He asked: “New York, do you want to sing with Africa?” Who could turn him down? For their politically charged song “Les Dirigeants Africains” the audience successfully joined in a call and response in French.
With that hurdle out of the way, SMOD was done messing around. Ousco and Donksy stripped down to their jeans and spent the rest of the set shirtless. More reserved, Sam stayed fully dressed. They needed the extra freedom of movement because they would spend the rest of the set jumping in sync with their own crackling rap verses. Note to musicians: one good way to get the audience to dance is to dance.
“New York, do you want to jump? I want to see you jump!” Ousco announced. And, dancing to a reggae rhythm that approached ska speeds, SMOD got New York on their feet and jumping too. The floor boards shook, a strobe light went off, and a guy in a top hat appeared out of nowhere. At one point they had the crowd singing a little in Bambara.
There’s a strong lyrical and melodic emphasis on SMOD’s Manu Chao-produced third album, with insouciant melodies often taking center stage. One could easily assume the group’s performance would be more reserved, but they were focused on having fun, on being a happening rather than a presentation. The set drew to a close with the audience spelling their name out, S, M, O, D. The name is based on the members initials.
Toward the end Ousco rewarded the house: “New York is very kind. It’s like we are in Mali.” They did seem at home. The setting for their debut didn’t seem to daunt the young group. Indeed, it was as if they brought Mali with them. 01/20/12 >> go there
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