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Product Description
Review
The influence of African pop music on Western musicians like Foals and Vampire Weekend has been much talked up in recent years, but it’s worth reminding one’s self that influence runs both ways.
Bassekou Kouyate is something of a maverick and innovator in his homeland of Mali. Skilled on the ngoni, a wooden lute traditional to West Africa, Kouyate was reportedly one of the first young African musicians to dispense with tradition and play his instrument while standing as one might solo on a guitar – controversial, at the time, but a style now far from unusual amongst West Africa’s more forward-thinking groups.
I Speak Fula is the follow-up to Segu Blue, Kouyate’s widely-acclaimed 2007 album with his band Ngoni ba. Since Kouyate's stand-up playing, he and his band have made further innovations to traditional ngoni play, adding a low-tuned customised bass ngoni and adding extra strings to make their instruments more harmonically flexible. The results are pretty spectacular. Astonishingly intricate melodies dancing over and across each other, long winding solos unfurling over clacking percussion, while the vocals – male harmonies and clear song from Kouyate’s wife, Amy Sacko – are soft in tone, but gain in power as the tempo rises.
Yet there’s never any doubt from the tone and delivery that this is essentially party music: the title track is played in a style called koreduga, which despite its somewhat tricky 9/8 rhythm, functions as dancing music in Mali. Jamana Be Diya, a variant on a popular Gambian song, doffs its cap to Barack Obama. And a couple of tracks featuring Vieux Farka Touré, son of Ali Farka Touré, add bluesy electric guitar to the mix – notably Saro, a prayer to loved ones dedicated to Kouyate’s late brother.
Intricate in play but endlessly listenable, I Speak Fula deserves to find its way out of the world music ghetto and onto the world stage. --Louis Pattison
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
CD Description
After his award winning album' 'Segu Blue' the ngoni wizard from Mali is back with a new offering: 'I Speak Fula'. The album captures the incredible live energy of Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba and is the next step in the career of one of Mali's most exciting and innovative musicians coming out of Africa.
Bassekou has transformed the traditional music of the ngoni into the modern world. With his band Ngoni ba he has created a new lineup as a quartet with a rock band's style of playing. Bassekou opened up the magic of an age-old music, to people all over the world.
For Bassekou Kouyate it has been a long journey that started out in Garana, a small village on the Niger river where he grew up, then took him to the town of Segu, capital of his region, and on to Mali's capital Bamako. And now it is taking him and his music around the world. Welcome to a new chapter of this exciting story.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Scratch and Spring is the new Rock and Roll,
By Francis Mitchell "EvilNoddy" (Ware, Hertfordshire (UK)) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: I Speak Fula (Audio CD)
There are some breathtaking sounds coming out of Africa at the moment (Vieux Farka Toure, Justin Adams work with Juldeh Camara, Tcheka and many more) but then there always are. To stand out requires careful presentation, exemplarily musicianship and fortunate contacts. When there is also the burden of following up such a gem of an album as `Segou Blue' it would have been easy for Bassekou Kouyate to keep the formula exactly as before. There is some welcome continuity, not least in the exquisite packaging and booklet that accompanies the CD, but the vision is expanded with a number of tracks featuring guest musicians. Some are well known, Toumani Diabate plays some of the most intricate kora I have heard and spurs Bassekou onto commensurate feats whilst Vieux Farka Toure brings a new power to Ngoni Ba, whilst others are new to me such as the remarkable `bonus' track at the end introducing the venerable Dramane Ze Konate and his mpolon (do not stop the CD when track eleven ends, there is a real treat before the CD ends). One caveat I have is that you will have to attune yourself to the conservative values of Mali when you understand the sentiments of `Amy'; BBC World Service listeners may know what I mean. This release does not eclipse `Segou Blue' but I feel an extra bounce in the music, it springs along is the same way that Presley rocked or Duke Ellington swung. Of course there is more to the music than forward motion, intricacy and a depth of new soundscapes are there when you give the time to this CD but do not leave it there, go and see them live - I should know as I have done just that five times (including one truly unforgettable homecoming in Segou).
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughtful follow-up,
By
This review is from: I Speak Fula (Audio CD)
It took a long time to get BK and his band off their seemingly never-ending tour and into the studio, but the result was truly worth waiting for.
I was to some extent surprised to the laid-back quality of many of the tracks, which is something of a contrast to their live act, but Amy Sacko's voice continues to move beautifully over the new set of wonderfully-arranged pieces. What's great about this band is the fact that they so clearly love what they're doing and are determined to enjoy every minute of it.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Speak Fula,
By
This review is from: I Speak Fula (Audio CD)
I Speak Fula represents a modernized, Traditional African, sound. So, if one DOESN'T care for African Pop music, and wants to hear music with Traditional West African Instruments and a Tradional West African Vocal Style, but MODERN Recording Techniques and Promotion, This is the CD for you. People who like English Folk Music or American Country Western Music or Bluegrass would probably like "I speak Fula".
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