Youssouf Kienou is lead singer and guitarist with
the band Djiliya. He sings in Dioula which
is Burkina Faso's second most common language after
Mooré, which is spoken by the Mossi. Djiliya’s
other members play the kora, (a harp-stringed instrument
with a large calabash sound-box), the djembé (a
goblet shaped hand drum which can be played when
standing, sitting, or squatting), the tama (a small
two-ended drum squeezed under the arm to produce
a variable pitch), the ngoni (the three stringed
local lute), a wooden flute, and the balafon (a
wooden xylophone with gourd resonators). He explains
the tradition of praise-singing and some of his
experiences of his work:
"I was born in the south-west, in a family
of praise-singers. I’ve heard this music since
I was a baby. My father, Baba Kienou, is chief of
the praise-singers of Burkina Faso. The guitar is
new, but all the other instruments are traditional
among praise-singers. The tama and the ngoni are
the oldest - it’s with the ngoni that the praise-singer
would go to the chief to sing the praises of his
family. The tama and the ngoni are for song, for
listening. The kora makes people dance. The kora,
the balafon and the djembé came into use later.
"Today there are a lot of changes in the lives
of praise-singers. Though we still have chiefs and
kings, they are not as they used to be, so we don’t
have praise-singing in the old way. My father stopped
most of his work, not because he had forgotten the
praises he should sing, but because his clients
had died. He stopped in 1987. He’s old now.
"If someone dies you praise the corpse. In
1992 I sang the praises of an old woman. She was
the oldest in her village, almost 100 years old,
with white hair and no teeth. She walked with a
stick, but when praise-singers visited, she would
still dance. We grew up around her, and she told
us stories about her youth.
"The day she died, the grandsons came to tell
us. We took our instruments and started praising,
and played the music, including the drums. Then
we saw the old woman’s body move and we stopped.
I was afraid. But her friends said ‘No, continue.
She’s happy, that’s why she moves’.
We accompanied her body from Ouagadougou to her
home village, 120 kilometres away. The praise-singers
must do that.
"In Djiliya, our music derives from our praise-singing.
That’s our inspiration, when we play, and when
we make new songs. I don’t feel that I’ve
left praise-singing behind, just that I use it differently,
for a new audience. This music is my life, my past,
and my future. I couldn’t live without it.
It’s in my family. I’ll teach all these
things to my daughter, as she grows up. Then what
she does will be up to her."
