L'Orchestre Le Bida de la Capitale

chant des pêcheurs Bozo,melodie qui rythme le mouvement des pagaies

piochant l'eau glauque du grand fleuve Niger :

Kenuna 

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Fantani Touré

In Mali, the voice of Fantani Touré rings out like a shout. Hers is the voice of a woman who has won battles against prejudice, against silence and against discouragement.

Touré is also notable for the fight she has led for several years against the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). In so doing, she has demonstrated how all women in Mali and throughout Africa can contribute a building block to the cause on behalf of women. One of Mali’s best-known artists, she is also the initiator and founder of the international Voices of Bamako Festival (Voix de Bamako), a forum for discussing various topics related to women’s issues. For her myriad efforts, Touré was decorated in January 2011 with the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre et de la Valeur by the president of Mali Amadou Toumani Touré. The award was bestowed in recognition of her artistic talent and her activities on behalf of the promotion of women and human rights.
Touré is a descendant of the first inhabitants of Bamako, the grand religious marabouts, who were renowned throughout the country. She comes from a large, extended family which is native to the  popular quarter of Bamako called Bozola. This artist took her first steps in her craft at a very young age, participating in various contests held in her neighborhood. These contests led to inter-community contests, which then led to artistic and cultural biennales of art and music in Mali.

 However, as she grew older, her parents began to discourage and oppose her pursuit of singing as a career. Given her family lineage, according the traditional caste system still firmly in place in Mali, it was unthinkable that a Touré would become a singer - much less one who sang before the masses. So, as Fantani recalls, “They married me off. I was 19 years old. My husband was of course in agreement with them. But this was much stronger than me. I needed to sing.” She continues: “I agreed to sing during a program that was filmed by the national TV in Mali. On the day it aired, my husband chased me away. I was divorced because of singing.”

Fortunately for her, her now ex-husband was not the only person watching the small television screen that day. And so it came about that more than 1,000 people descended upon Bozola, the quarter of the fishermen where the Touré family lived, to convince her father to allow his daughter to sing. They succeeded. Success soon followed. The famous Malian singer Salif Keita had also taken note of the young singer, and he went on to produce her first album, which became the best-selling album of 1997.

N'Tin Naari

Touré’s passion for art and music did not keep her from continuing her education. In 1988 she received her diploma in technical finance from the School of Industry, Commerce and Administration (l’École d’Industrie, de Commerce et d’Administration, or ECICA) of Bamako. But as this learning did not fully satisfy all her desires, she decided to deepen her musical skills and in enrolled in Mali’s Institut National des Arts, where she received her diploma in music in 1992.

Touré launched the international Voices of Bamako Festival in 2008 to celebrate African women and traditional African arts. The festival program encompasses several domains such as theatre, learning pottery, artisanal work and pirogue races and also includes roundtable discussions on topics addressing women’s issues. During this festival women from Mali and other parts of Africa are honored. Touré has also contributed to developing artistic talent in Mali, where she has trained and assisted several artists for more than a decade.

T

Fantani Touré believes that political participation is not a combat against men, but adds that men must understand that to be a woman does not mean that one is a “lesser being” or an “underling.” She believes the complementariness between the two fosters the emergence of a home, a society, a nation.
She maintains that one can respect tradition while also respecting the rights of women. She also notes that the way youth are educated in Mali has changed a lot since when she was growing up. Young women today have more freedom and are able to make decisions concerning their future.

Girls’ education and the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) are the battles that Touré has led since the start of her singing career. She makes use of her position as an opinion maker to speak out on these topics in the media and during her concerts. She is, in fact, the first Malian singer to write and perform songs that speak out against the practice of FGM. Her combat has not come without a price; several times she has been attacked and threatened by women who are FGM practitioners.

As has been true for many Malian and African artists, Fantani Touré says she has been greatly influenced throughout her career path by the renowned late Malian singer Ali Farka Touré. She said she prays to heaven that she’ll have even more support to continue being able to promote women’s rights for as long as possible. For her, Africa’s future rests in the hands of women.

by Sandra Zerbo 

Pascal Diatta & Sona Mané-Simnadé + 4

some of you might still remember this fine recording from freedomblues and grapewrath. 
it was too good to let it fade away and be forgotten once more 
so I decided to post it here anew,this time accompanied with the writing of the original poster 
esteemed (ex)blogger -musician and friend, Irate Pirate: 

For any of you looking for the African equivalent of Joseph Spence and the Pinder Family, this is it. Like Spence, Pascal Diatta has a style all his own, as inimitable as it is distinctive and fitting to the music. Sudden stops and starts, rhythms that repeat like you wouldn't expect them to, and very hand-crafted harmonies make this album a treat of raw, funky, sparse, delicious music. It is totally devoid of pretension, and totally full of musicality. The guitar playing is so full of syncopation that practically every note and strum occurs when you wouldn't expect it, and is unlike any other African guitar styles, being based neither on the patterns of kora/ngoni nor on those of the mbira thumb piano. And like the Pinders, Sona Mané's vocals come from somewhere in the same dimension as the guitar: untrained, unexpected, unassuming, and fantastic!

On the surface, this music seems very naked, rough, even 'primitive'. And there is a sort of 3rd-world happiness that pervades the tunes which have a quality of celebratory ordinariness. But behind this rough, simple exterior we find a very complex sense of rhythm weaving its way through the guitar lines and a refreshingly honest directness to the singing which conveys the wealth of human experience through the prism of joyful shouts and wails. If you're anything like me, it may take a couple of listens to really 'get' it, but once you do, you won't be able to put it down! The music is totally infectious: it gets inside your skin and makes your heart jump, but without any of the usual tactics of pop production.

listen

Simnadé

or listen  here
alternatively

"Mané's passionate, husky voice stuns and enchants, sending shivers down the spine.

 But it is Diatta's amazing finger-picking stop/start guitar that really takes the breath away,

 providing looping and spiralling patterns over and under the swooping and soaring voices.

 This is utterly extraordinary music"

Alhaji Fabala Kanuteh

*****

Abel Lima e Les Sofas cantam Nos Bida

Abel Lima from the island of Boa Vista,Cabo Verde,better known as  Don Abel was (and still is) an important and politically committed artist .for today,stories of immigration, exploitation and saudade in funk and coladeira from his first personal lp -mid 70's after his participation in  the PAIGC sponsored KaoGuiAMo group

read some more in muzzicaltrips

Nos Bida

Kakraba Lobi-Xylophone Player from Ghana

In Ghana, Kakraba Lobi is considered to be the gyil’s spokesperson by virtue of being one of the only living virtuosi to have mastered the vast and difficult repertoire, and possibly the only to have gained international acclaim as a concert soloist.
He was born in Kalba Saru in the Lobi and Birifor area of Nothern Ghana in 1939. His father is a farmer who is also highly skilled in the art of xylophone making and playing, like his father before him. His brothers, too, make and play drums and xylophones. As a child, Kakraba watched and listened intently, and thus became involved in the family tradition.

When he was old enough, Kakraba traveled south to the city of Accra where he was invited by many people to perform, and even played out on the streets, earning more than most people with office jobs. He gave broadcasts for Radio Ghana, and in 1957 he was invited to give a concert at the University of Ghana, Legon, where Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia offered him a teaching post in the Institute of African Studies.
From 1962 until 1987, Kakraba was a full-time member of the staff at the Institute. In addition to his own Lobi and Birifor music, he has learned much of the music of the Ga, Ashanti and Dagati peoples. His repertoire and technique have been studied by ethnomusicologists from around the world.

According to qualified opinion, Kakraba is the finest xylophonist in his Ghana homeland, though he is too modest to claim such a title. His art is deeply rooted in tradition, and by virtue of his personality and extraordinary life circumstances, he has evolved into a world class solo performer.
Kakraba plays a xylophone, Kogili, with fourteen wooden keys. The Kogili has spiritual significance for the Lobi and the Birifor, who believe that it acquires part of the soul of its maker and owner, whose skills are in turn attributable to spirit origin. In order to preserve this spiritual element, various objects may be added to the instrument, such as porcupine quills, ancestral carved figures, crosses cut into the tips of the keys or brass tacks inserted into them.

from this site

Kakraba Lobi passed away  in July 2007

a homage and his funeral can be "viewed" right here:
http://lobimusic.org/

Xylophone player 

& more 

I walk alone

I walk alone

this is Marijata can be found in osibisaba * salut friend wherever you are 

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