For more than forty years Salif Keita has been the goldsmith of modern Malian music, tirelessly pursuing his craft by extending musical frontiers in a constant quest for new ways to make records; and his own music has multiplied its overtures to the world around him...

In the course of his travels—and encounters—Salif Keita never put aside his Mande roots and culture. A pioneering singer and composer, Salif made his first appearance in the avant-garde of music thanks to his vocal exploits with the Rail Band and the Ambassadeurs, two of the greatest Malian orchestras of the Seventies, before he became one of the great revelations of the nascent world music genre after his solo debut with the album Soro in 1987.

After such later classics as Moffou in 2002 and M’Bemba in 2005, today he beautifully brings the decade to a close with La Différence, the third chapter of his acoustic trilogy released by Universal Jazz. The record is not only one of the most moving albums of his career, but also one of his most politically committed, and it was recorded for the most part in Paris, with other sessions taking place in Bamako, Mali (in his own studio named Le Moffou), Djoliba (the village on the banks of the river Niger where Salif was born), Los Angeles and Beirut.

Salif Keita is a man in perpetual motion. Instead of remaining hidebound in tradition (albeit a tradition mastered to perfection), Salif Keita has stayed on the edge where musical evolution is concerned, and particularly the technology that makes evolution possible... and his new album, the jewel in a crown of sumptuous arrangements, proves it, together with a crew of loyal musicians both new and old who surround Salif in closed ranks.

Salif derives his artistic strength mainly from his permanent search for self-renewal, both in his lyrics and music, but also in song. His voice makes him capable of interpreting true emotions, whether singing in Malinka, Bambara or French. Always looking for the best possible sound, he never wavers in alternating these languages in his search for poetic accuracy. It's not the least of his paradoxes that Salif's noble status—his Keita lineage—prohibited him using Griot techniques as a singer (and even from pronouncing their words).

As a descendant of the illustrious Emperor Soundjata Keita, whose 13^th century empire stretched from the Atlantic ocean to the confines of the Sahara and the Gulf of Guinea, Salif Keita is today the symbol of an Africa proud of its roots and history, yet an Africa perfectly ready to cast itself into the world of globalisation in search of a modernity as rampant as it is elusive.

Born an albino, Salif Keita had a clear skin-colour that was an ill omen in the ancestral Mali where he grew into a man. "I'm a black man, my skin is white and I like it, it's my difference / I'm a white man, my blood is black, I love that, it's the difference that's pretty", he sings in La différence, the title-track from his album and its first single. He says it all in this hymn to tolerance, a song in which he expresses his artistic convictions as he has rarely done before.

In addition to this tune, a plea in favour of increased recognition for albinos, the album also touches on environmental issues, such as the preservation of his native country. Ekolo d’Amour aims to improve awareness of the ecological tragedies from which Africa has suffered for decades, while the world has remained totally indifferent. In San Ka Na, Salif seeks to waken his fellow-citizens' conscience regarding the protection of the river Niger, on whose banks Salif was born and raised. Coming straight from the heart, the song is a genuine scream of outrage at the idleness of politicians in protecting the waters forming Mali's backbone, today little more than a polluted stream.

The album was produced by Patrice Renson, who has worked with M., Vanessa Paradis and Ben Ricour, and he gave substance to Salif's intentions with obvious efficiency; the pop influences are more pronounced than before, yet fluidly performed: Renson plays the drums, guitar or percussion on other tracks from La Différence, and he also wrote the string arrangements for Samigna, San Ka Na and Ekolo d’Amour, which were recorded in Beirut with the Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf. The three titles swathe the voice of Salif in oriental shimmers that underline the natural interaction between Arab and Mandingo music, between oud and n'goni.

Joe Henry recorded, produced and remixed Papa and Folon, two of the most moving titles on the album, both of them classics in Salif's repertoire, as is Seydou, actually a new version of the title Seydou Bathily, a standard from the days of the Ambassadeurs du Motel band in Bamako. Papa, particularly, contains traces of emotions that are universally profound, nuances of other pieces whose themes are often serious but where hope and joie de vivre triumph in the end.

The melody of Djélé is underpinned by the balafon played by Keletigui Diabaté, a monument in the music of Mali and one of Salif's most faithful accomplices for some forty years; it illustrates the song's clarity in the most natural way imaginable, and evokes the ties that link the musician to Salif, who learned to play the guitar at his side.

But each musician featured here is perfect, a reflection of the complicity shared with Salif: Jannick Top's bass and Vincent Segal's cello on Gaffou; Ibrahim Maalouf's trumpet on Samigna; the guitars of Kante Manfila and Ousmane Kouyaté together with Mamadou Koné's percussion on San Ka Na; the bass of Guy N’Sangue on Djélé or the guitars of Seb Martel and Bill Frisell on Folon... accomplices all.

The softness of Seydou, the sincerity in La Différence, the depth of feeling in Folon or the melancholy present in San Ka Na all compose an album of plural vibrations, yet the ensemble is homogeneous, a unified work whose most striking feature remains the soaring voice of a singer at the summit of his art. On the title-track, Salif's song is, "To each his happiness in honour," a true manifesto for universal bliss.


The Foundation "Salif Keïta pour les albinos"

"In Africa, being born an albino is dramatic," says Salif. The lack of an educational system in a country such as Mali, where the population is more than three-quarters illiterate, does much to explain the continued existence of disastrous beliefs concerning albinos. Since 2001, the Foundation known as Salif Keïta pour les albinos has been working to increase large-scale awareness of this issue in Mali, and refute obscurantist-beliefs that albinos are cursed. The Foundation provides care and assistance to albinos, together with protection against the sun, their worst enemy after indifference.