Oumou Sangarà©'s trans-Atlantic blues
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Loading... - Adzo Asamoah
- 25 Aug 2022
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The first five seconds of Wassulu Don sound like something from the Detroit blues era of the 1940s that brought us the world of John Lee Hooker. Then the voice of Malian superstar Oumou Sangaré drops in while a kamele ngoni riff from Mamadou Sidibe circulates behind her, just beneath handclaps and some scorching Hooker-esque guitar courtesy of Pascal Danaë.
Then Frenchman Laurent Vernerey’s thick bass arrives, sparse at first but building to take control of a rhythm in which the folk music of the West African Wassoulou region rubs up against American folk.
The melding of these two worlds is at the heart of Sangaré’s new album Timbuktu, which dropped on World Circuit Records at the end of April. It is most evident in the trans-Atlantic interplay between Danaë’s guitar and Sidibe’s ngoni.
Danaë is a French guitarist and composer, with roots in Guadeloupe, while Sidibe has been Sangaré’s kamele ngoni player since the start of her career more than 30 years ago.
The love song Kanou is an exquisitely arranged string piece, where Sidibe’s ngoni, Cheick Diabate’s banjo and Danaë’s slide guitar and dobro combine to spectacular effect. On Degui N’Kelena, Danaë’s gorgeous slide guitar punctuates Sangaré’s vocals, while Sidibe provides a stunning bedrock of shimmering ngoni. Read More...
