Mali
Album: Ballaké Sissoko - DjourouMonday, 05 April 2021
Ballaké Sissoko is one of the greatest musicians in Africa – a kora player of extraordinary quality, strongly rooted in the Manding and family traditions that have nourished him. He’s also a born collaborator, with a sense of adventure that has... Read more... |
Fatoumata Diawara, Roundhouse review - Malian magic on showFriday, 31 January 2020
Fatoumata Diawara knows how to please: with a winning and innocent smile, she wins the audience over in a matter of seconds. She has a vocal style all of her own: in her first song, “Don Do”, a quiet and meditative prelude to the boisterous show... Read more... |
Rokia Traoré: Dream Mandé: Djata, Brighton Festival 2019 review – resonant griot wisdomThursday, 23 May 2019
Rokia Traoré’s passage through this year’s Brighton Festival has been central, binding it to her Malian identity in a series of gigs. This hands-on Guest Director’s pulsing Afro-rock Opening Night was followed by the first Dream Mandé show’s... Read more... |
Rokia Traoré: Dream Mandé: Bamanan Djourou, Brighton Festival 2019 review – traditions soar freeMonday, 20 May 2019
Much of Rokia Traoré’s set on Saturday night comprised folk songs about Mali’s warrior kings, connecting with her country’s fabulously wealthy, proudly powerful past. They suit this diplomat’s daughter’s regal stature, which she has put at the... Read more... |
Deep State, Series 2, Fox review - covert conspiracies in AfricaFriday, 10 May 2019
Last year’s first season of Deep State featured cloak and dagger exploitations of chaos in the Middle East by the capitalist West and its intelligence services. Judging by its opening episode, this second iteration is about to do something similar,... Read more... |
Rokia Traoré: Né So, Brighton Festival review - an Afro-psychedelic head-fryMonday, 06 May 2019
The last thing many were expecting from Rokia Traoré’s opening appearance at this year’s Brighton Festival was an Afro-psychedelic head-fry, yet she and her four-piece band prove thoroughly capable of swirling our minds right off out of it. When she... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 21Saturday, 04 November 2017
The latest of Peter Culshaw’s global music round-up of new and re-released sounds features new albums from veteran Afro-beat pioneer Tony Allen, an astonishing collaboration between revered string quartet Kronos and Malian traditionalists Trio Da... Read more... |
WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review - multicultural nirvana transcends mud-bath conditionsMonday, 31 July 2017
Now in its 35 year, Womad is embedded into British festival culture, flying the flags of a musical multiculturalism that is about breaking down barriers and building new relationships. It’s not something you want to lose.Aside from pleasurable... Read more... |
CD: Vieux Farka Touré - SambaThursday, 25 May 2017
The river of sound from Mali never stops flowing. War in the Sahara and the constant threat of Jihadists haven’t stopped the ceaseless wave of creativity that surges through the West African country.The Malians speak of music giving courage, of song... Read more... |
CD: Oumou Sangaré - MogoyaMonday, 15 May 2017
Contemporary music from Mali hovers delicately (and creatively) between purist tradition and more or less successful attempts at making things more attractive to a younger and worldwide audience. Oumou Sangaré’s first five albums for the British... Read more... |
CD: Tinariwen - ElwanSunday, 05 February 2017
Tinariwen are one African band you don’t dance to. It’s not that kind of music. They emerged from refugee camps, guerrilla camps and nomadic desert camps through the Eighties and Nineties, and since reaching a global audience via The Festival of The... Read more... |
CD: Kel Assouf - TikounenWednesday, 04 May 2016
When the Tuareg band Tinariwen first started to come to prominence a decade or so ago, world music purists tried to lay claim that they were purveyors of what they called "desert blues". The reason being, presumably, that the blues in their... Read more... |
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