Word: griot
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...hopping, try the perennially popular Folyblon, tel: (223) 675 5933. Situated in the Hippodrome, Bamako's new trendy district, it lures a sharply dressed, mostly student crowd with bands like the Makossa ensemble Mouv' Africa. To hear percussive panache, drop by on Thursdays for the djembe sessions. Friday is griot night when a beer costs only...
...parties and the city's many music venues crank up the bass. Perhaps surprisingly, there is more than a little flavor of Cuba here - partly due to commerce, and partly due to shared rhythmic heritage. Yet each ethnic or social group (ranging from the singer-storyteller caste known as griots to the Fulani and Tuareg tribes) has its own musical tradition. The result? A heady mélange that spans infectious Afro-pop, bluesy grooves, hip-hop and a mosaic of traditional genres. That mix is best encountered at La Refuge, tel: (223) 223 3799. It has no street address...
...development on Senegalese women’s lives. She snuck in a side trip to visit friends she had made during her family’s earlier three-year stint in the Republic of Niger. It was there that she heard her stories, from the mouth of a woman griot (storyteller) who sat under the shade of a 30-foot-wide acacia tree...
LaTeef spoke no Zarma and the woman spoke nothing else, but a friend stood and translated while LaTeef scribbled furiously into the notebook she always carried around. “A griot is more than just a performer. She’s the keeper of old words, the library of a village,” says LaTeef. As an anthropologist, LaTeef was fascinated. Griots have particular importance in a society such as the Zarma’s, which has a literacy rate of only 10 percent. LaTeef was fascinated by the beauty of the oral tradition and the sheer sound...
...beginning, when mbalax [a blend of Senegal's traditional griot percussion and praise singing with modern Afro-Cuban arrangements] was starting off, it was never a question of people saying, "It's not good; it's not well done," but rather, "We don't like it." Later, as success arrived with this music, those who were more traditional began to appreciate that our success could be a window onto traditional music...