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Why did Damon visit?
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Damon in Bamako, Mali |
Photo: Greg Williams |
Finding common musical ground
Blur's Damon Albarn recently visited Mali with On the Line. Using
music as a way to cross cultural and language borders, he met with
local musicians to learn about their lives, music and culture.
Mali is classified as one of the poorest countries in the world,
but it has an amazingly rich musical heritage. Praise singers, known
as jelis if they are men and jelimusolu if they
are women, sing the praises of their family and their country today
just as they did thousands of years ago.
Traditional instruments like the kora (lute), ngoni
(guitar) and balafon (xylophone) create the unique sounds
of Malian music. While he was in Mali, Damon met some of the country's
most famous and accomplished performers, including kora player Toumani
Diabaté, praise singer Kasse Mady and Kokanko Sata, a woman who
has broken with tradition by playing the ngoni – until recently
an exclusively male preserve.
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