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The African Clapton
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Hour Magazine, The African Clapton >>
Bugs Burnett
Mali guitarist Habib Koité emerges as the bright star of
Afro-pop
In a land where Oumou Sangare is revered as a pop goddess,
Mali's Habib Koité is nothing less than an Afro-pop god. But
the man descended from an 800-year-old noble line of
Khassonké griots (storytellers who preserve the history of a
village and/or family through oral tradition) never believed
he would one day become a messenger embraced by an entire
nation, much less world music fans around the globe.
And it would not have happened if not for an uncle who in
1978 insisted the then 19-year-old Koité enrol at the
National Institute of Arts in Mali's capital city of Bamako.
There Koité performed with a who's who of Malian musicians,
but he never forgot his griot mother who taught him to play
guitar, nor the important role his family continues to play
in Mali to this very day.
"The more noble [griots in Mali] are the Koité," Habib
explains over a cellphone as he walks through a sheep market
back home on the eve of La Fête des moutons, a national
holiday in Mali on January 21. "We were noble griots since
the very beginning of the Malian [kingdom]. They used to
speak to the people. We know all the families, who comes
from who and where. And we know the history of our society -
the heroes, the stories, the family trees that constitute
the history of my country. And so we pass this on to our
children."
The often gentle, pensive and wholly African dramas Koité
retells reflect his deeply expressive singing voice and
commanding presence that light up his live shows (in his
song Batoumanbe he
sings "The fisherman said, 'When I touch your breasts, it is
not desire/ It is out of love for the owner of the
breasts'").
It also helps that Koité's hot, 21-member band Bamada (also
a nickname for the residents of Bamako, and which roughly
translates to "In the mouth of the crocodile") mix Cuban
riddims, flamenco and American blues with indigenous Malian
music. Everyone from Bonnie Raitt to Jackson Brown praise
the Hendrix-influenced Koité, who was even dubbed "the
African Clapton" by the Netherlands' top music magazine,
OOR.
"There are multitudes of ethnic groups and languages here in
Africa," Koité explains. "There is no single language that
everyone speaks. So music is the unifier. When people like
the music of another ethnic group, they will sing that song
in the language of that ethnic group. You hear them say,
'Ah, he is singing our music. He wants to know us better.'
So I am able to bring people together in this way by
incorporating all kinds of Malian music in my own music."
In fact, Koité has been uniting music lovers for two decades
now, and this week launches his massive three-month North
American tour promoting his just-released double album Fôly!
Live Around the World.
As he tours, the dreadlocked Koité ("I am not Rasta, but my
heart is Rasta") is grateful the world is reaching out to
the victims of the December 26 Asian tsunami. But like every
African, he bemoans the tide of AIDS drowning his
drought-stricken, war-ravaged continent.
"We can beat AIDS in Africa, we have the capability," he
says. "But we need compassion for all."
Perhaps this is why audiences worldwide embrace Koité: He
exudes warmth and compassion.
When I ask him if he ever believed as a young man that he'd
tour the world spreading this message through music, Koité
immediately replies over the sheep baaing in a Bamako
market, "I never would have believed it. Each day the
biggest moment of pleasure in my life is when I play music
for the people."
Habib Koité and Bamada
At Kola Note, Jan. 30
01/30/05 >> go there
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