Salif Keita: Part Two

Salif Keita is one of the great African voices, a man whose pipes have been praised for decades. The Malian rejected his heritage to become a singer, running a gauntlet of opposition from his family, and carved out a career, first with two seminal bands - the Super Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs - then as a solo performer based in the world music centre of Paris. But his career took a turn after he returned to his homeland to live. That move seemed to fire a creative spark in him, resulting in the much-lauded acoustic Moffou (2002) and now the glory of M'bemba. Both albums revel in tradition, and there's a sense of joy in every note of the music.

"Most of all it gave me the feeling of coming back home," explains Keita. "All those years I went all over the world to meet other people in order to learn other musics. After years of a long musical travel, I came back home and put my heavy luggage, filled of all the music I learnt, on the floor. Now I appreciate being at home. My music is richer than what I would have done if I had stayed in Mali."

"After years of a long musical travel, I came back home and put my heavy luggage, filled of all the music I learnt, on the floor. Now I appreciate being at home. My music is richer than what I would have done if I had stayed in Mali."

But there's no doubt that coming home has changed him. There's a sense of relaxation about Keita, a contentment. Instead of being a visitor in his homeland, he's now made a life, and a very full life here, even building a recording studio in the capital, Bamako, which he used for the making of M'bemba. It was, he recalls, "a great feeling, a great pride. It's the first time I recorded an album in Africa, and besides in my own place. It's very inspiring, every time you go out of the studio for a small pause, you smell Africa, you feel Africa. It's really different from recording in Paris, London or New-York. Each time we needed a great traditional musician we just had a phone call to make and he came one hour later. Moreover I'm proud that technologically this album is at the same level as those before even recorded in Africa. It's inspired by Africa, done in Africa, but with the same technical means as in Europe. And it's not over, the Malian artists will be able to benefit from the equipment we brought for this record since the studio will now be used for the label Wanda I set up. M'bemba will have little brothers and sisters!"

Although it's a very contemporary album, there's a strong streak of tradition at the core of M'bemba, enough to make the listener believer it could be the work of a griot, the caste that keeps the songs, stories and music of the past alive. But it's really just the work of someone who's rediscovered his passion for the tradition.

"I did learn music with griots, but I'm not one," Keita says. "But it's good sometimes to break tradition, when tradition prevents people from improving." And he knows. He grew up in a period when escaping family destiny meant difficult choices. He himself was born into royal stock, and was disowned by his father after making the decision to become a singer and deny his heritage. Additionally, as an albino, he was believed to be cursed, and treated with ridicule. He overcame a great deal, and showed huge determination to begin his career, but his nickname - Africa's Golden Voice - shows that his faith was completely justified.

Early on, with the Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs, he helped break new ground, making distinctly new West African music that also tipped its hat to sounds that had influenced the region, including Cuban music. Indeed, there was a glorious musical relationship between West Africa and Cuba, and melodies and rhythms criss-crossed the Atlantic. So, as he says, it seems "very natural" to hear traces of Cuba on a couple of M'bemba's songs.

"During all my childhood I heard a lot of Cuban music and South American standards. I love Celia Cruz, she was one of my favourite singers with Wilson Pickett! Cuban and Malian music fit very well together. Did you know that a Malian band went to Cuba during the sixties to listen to Cuban music. They stayed there one year and came back very successfully, they were called Las Maravillas de Mali."

A little stranger, perhaps, is the inclusion of hurdy-gurdy on one cut - hardly an African instrument - but Keita notes that "it was an idea from the producer, Jean Lamoot. He once worked with a French band called Dupain who uses tradition from the South of France and this instrument. I found it very close to some sounds from Mali and we decided to use that for the album."

After Keita moved to Paris in the 1980s, he found true commercial success, making albums that appealed to the head, the heart and the feet. He mixed African music with jazz and funk, all topped by his wonderful vocals. He enjoyed plenty of commercial success, although these days he notes that "I prefer critical success, it is stronger." There were missteps along the way, albums that didn't work, but in retrospect Keita was slowly working his way to the powerful, personal music that inhabits both Moffou and M'bemba. Again, it hasn't always been straightforward. There was the Remixes from Moffou CD that seemed to negate the whole idea behind the album (although Keita offers muffled praise for it: "It was the record label idea, but I was open to it and curious about the result. Some I didn't understand, some I loved, it was a good experience, let your work be re-owned by someone else without any control."). But now Salif Keita sounds like a man who's completely come home, so rooted he can take chances.

"Now I'm daring much more. Before, I did all what I did in order to learn. When I started my career, I knew nothing about music. I was not a griot, I didn't go to school to learn music. So I went away to meet jazzman and other musicians all over the world. Joe Zawinul, Carlos Santana, Vernon Reid. I learnt a lot and now I feel stronger and therefore freer. I know a little bit more than before."

Salif Keita: Part Two

"After years of a long musical travel, I came back home and put my heavy luggage, filled of all the music I learnt, on the floor. Now I appreciate being at home. My music is richer than what I would have done if I had stayed in Mali."

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