World Music Matters

Songhoy Blues is an exciting young guitar quartet from northern Mali. As they release their second album Résistance, lead singer Aliou Touré talks to RFI about how Bamako's club scene defies ethnic divides and the thrill of getting Iggy Pop on board.

The four musicians are all from Gao in the north. When a jihadi incursion in 2012 forced them into exile in Bamako, they formed Songhoy Blues and have been wowing international audiences ever since with their blend of desert blues, rock, rap and funk. 

"Songhoy Blues was born in a difficult situation and when we set up the band we was angry," says lead singer Aliou Touré. "And we’re still angry about what’s going on right now around us."

Angry that the jihadist group banned music in the north, angry that even in Bamako, which has been spared the worst of the violence, it's still difficult to make a living from music. But rather than ranting and raving, Songhoy Blues is showcasing Malian talent.

"We just wanna show people around the world how rich Mali is musically," says Touré. We have 13 different languages and ethnic tribes in Mali from the north to the south: Touarag people, Songhoy people, Dogon people, Bambara, Fulani ... [each with] their own language, culture, music.

"Some is more percussion, some more melodic like the Desert blues. So when you mix all of that kind of music you probably find something like Songhoy Blues," he adds.

Taking risks

Résistance follows the band's 2015 acclaimed album Music in Exile. A leopard takes pride of place on the new album's cover.

"The leopard is one of the animals who resists [the most] Touré explains. "He's kind of protecting us. You can see the four of us in shadow because we need a protection because we're talking about resistance and political things."

The song Dabari (meaning solution) condemns violence used by Malian police during anti-government protests in the north in July 2016.

"Where I was born in Gao [...] soldiers, police, shot people, that shouldn’t happen. They're there to protect people, not to shoot them."

Touré says public TV channels don't show such images. "So we have to talk about that for the people who didn't hear."

But the band also wants to counter the endless "bad news" stories, to help change negative perceptions of Africa and Mali in particular. On the song  Bamako they play a grooving tribute to the city and its pulsating nightlife.

"Bamako isn't just a war town, not at all. It's a party town. We just want to show people are outside enjoying life every night."

What's more the night life crosses ethnic divides.

"In the lyrics we say 'people from the north and people from the south are on the same stage, dancing in Bamako in the clubs, even if [they] are not on the same stage of politics'."

On the dancefloor, everything is possible he adds.

"When Songhoy Blues plays in a club in Bamako you can see every single ethnic group in Mali dancing with us, that's the [real] life in Bamako."

The beautiful side of the Sahara

The violence in the north of Mali has given the Sahara a bad press. Billed as a virtual no go zone, the region's people have suffered as a result.

"We just want people to discover that beautiful side of the Sahara. So we need someone very important, a legend, to get involved, to help us to push that message."

The band's label, Transgressive, managed to get no other than rock legend Iggy Pop on board. On Sahara he growls about "going to the Sahara, baby".... [even if] there ain't no pizza" there.

"When [Transgressive] write to him he replied straight away and said yes. We was surprised because it’s not easy to find a legend when you're a young band from Africa, from Mali. But he was very open to do that job with us."

MC Elf Kid from London lends his voice to the song Mali Nord (north Mali), about the region's refugees in Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina, Niger. 'Rise up 'cause Africa's waiting' he raps.

"There are a lot of kids [in refugee camps] who need to go to school, need help, need to be safe. And a lot of young people from refugee camps just want to go to Europe, [they] cross the ocean to find a better life, because [they have] no job, and they're not safe. It’s our responsibility to talk about that."

Touré says their good friend Elf Kid shared this sentiment. 

"He also have the same kind of idea of us because he writes a lot about Africa. He shares a lot of our feelings about Africa."

One Colour

The last track One Colour features a children's choir singing about the importance of feeling at home wherever you are. 

"The last thing to say is 'we can... together'. It doesn’t matter if you’re Muslim, Christian, Jewish, black or white or yellow. If you watch our planet from a satellite view you will see a tiny blue thing, you’re not gonna see the different colours inside."

All down to Damon Albarn

Songhoy Blues are embarking on a huge North American tour this Autumn. Touré credits Damon Albarn (lead singer with Brit indie band Blur and pioneer of Africa Express) with opening the door for them.

"Damon did a lot for African musicians. If we’re here touring it’s 100% because of him. I can’t imagine where I would be without him. He took the risk to go to Mali with 100 people from all over the world in 2012, exactly when they said to people not to go there. He went there to help artists. It’s a special thing to do."

Songhoy Blues play the Afropunk festival in Paris on 20 July. Follow the band on facebook.

Dizzy Gillespie, the great trumpet player and pioneer of a style of modern jazz known as be-bop, was also very influenced by Afro-Cuban music. To mark the centenary of his birth, the Mansfarroll and Campana Project, a band of mainly Cuban musicians, gave the Dizzie El Afrocubana concert at Paris's Studio de l'Ermitage, performing some of the jazzman's best loved tunes.

Dizzy Gillespie, the great trumpet player and pioneer of a style of modern jazz known as be-bop, was also very influenced by Afro-Cuban music. To mark the centenary of his birth, the Mansfarroll and Campana Project, a band of mainly Cuban musicians, gave the Dizzie El Afrocubana concert at Paris's Studio de l'Ermitage, performing some of the jazzman's best loved tunes. 

Dizzy Gillespie met Chano Pozo, Cuba's greatest percussionist, in Harlem in 1947. The two men struck a chord and Pozo played his conga drum with Gillespie's big band at a concert in Carnegie Hall. Cubop, a new form of Afro-Cuban jazz, was born.

Gillespie and Pozo co-wrote Latin jazz classics like “Manteca,” “A Night in Tunisia,” "Tin Tin Deo", "Cubana Be".

So what better way to mark the jazzman's centenary than a tribute to that Cuban influence. Cuban percussionist and musical director Abraham Mansfarroll Rodriguez gathered together a top class band: Mario Felix el Indio (trumpet), Irving Acao (tenor sax), Martin Berluge (trombone), Dimitrios Sevdalis (piano), Rafael Paseiro (bass), Carlos Miguel (vocals), Sebastian Quezada (percussions), Joel Hierrezuelo (percussions).

Mansfarroll and el Indio talk to RFI about why they feel musically and spiritually connected to Gillespie.

Abraham Mansfarroll is releasing his first solo album Utop!a Guantanamera. Listen here.

Follow him on facebook

In this week's World Music Matters Alison Hird reports on one of west Africa's greatest female voices - Oumou Sangaré from Mali. She has just released a new album Mogoya after an eight year break but the successful businesswoman and champion of women's rights has been as active as ever.

RFI reports from the recent Accents du sud festival in Paris which gave pride of place to the Occitan language from the south of France. Singers from the Béarn province in the Pyrenees showed why their region is known as "the land of song", and the band Du Bartàs from Languedoc gave the old, romantic, language a modern twist.

RFI reports from the recent Accents du sud festival in Paris which gave pride of place to the Occitan language from the south of France. Singers from the Béarn province in the Pyrenees showed why their region is known as "the land of song", and the band Du Bartàs from Languedoc gave the old, romantic, language a modern twist.

Du Bartàs, a five piece band, sing in Occitan and Arabic, reflecting the rich mix of their native Languedoc region. "Occitan is a very rhythmic language," says Jocelyn Papon, the band's vocalist, percussionist and cuatro player. And despite a drop in the number of people using the language, the band remains committed to keeping it alive. Papon talks about how they're reinventing the musical tradition, notably by incorporating Latin rhythms.

In the Béarn region, Occitan is very much alive and kicking thanks to a relatively stable population.  Pierre Salles, a former teacher of the language talks to RFI about the tradition of Cantèra (spontaneous group harmony singing). "We can't not sing," he says. Many people still know the rich repertory of songs dating back as early as the 14th century, while others (like himself) are writing new ones.

Aryana Sayeed is a superstar in her native Afghanistan. Singing in Pashto and Dari, her sensual and provocative music videos have been viewed by millions of fans at home and abroad. But they've also drawn the wrath of hardliners.  At her first ever concert in Paris she talks to RFI about giving a voice to disempowered Afghan women and living under a fatwa.

Aryana Sayeed is a superstar in her native Afghanistan. Singing in Pashto and Dari, her sensual and provocative music videos have been viewed by millions of fans at home and abroad. But they've also drawn the wrath of hardliners.  At her first ever concert in Paris she talks to RFI about giving a voice to disempowered Afghan women and living under a fatwa.

Aryana Sayeed began as a pop singer, and still is, but her songs are more than traditional pop fare.

"I usually try to sing songs that have strong messages behind them," she tells RFI before performing to a full house at Theatre du Gymnase on May 13. "I sing for women’s rights in Afghanistan, I sing for love, for peace, which is really needed back home in my country."

Sayeed was born in Kabul, and left for Pakistan aged eight. After being educated in Switzerland and then settling in the UK, she returned to Kabul five years ago and now spends most of her time there. It changed both her music and the way she sees life.

"The impact was crazy. I started as a pop music singer, I didn’t care much about the world around me and when I went to Afghanistan what I saw there - the lives of these poor people, poor women of Afghanistan, how they get treated by violent men, poor kids on the roads and everything, it really affected me. I changed a lot, even my music changed. Now I have a purpose behind my music, I want to bring a positive change, I want to bring a smile into people’s faces and I want to give them happiness."

Championing women

The song Qaramaan (meaning champion in Farsi) invites Afghan women to believe in themselves.

"Even if the sting of your tongue brings tears to my eyes" she sings. "Or if the blade of your gaze tries to slit my soul and cause my demise,  bring forth no matter what you can, I won’t bow to you no matter what your plan, because I know a day will finally come when to my sky high thoughts you will finally succumb."

"Women in Afghanistan feel really weak, they are weak," Sayeed explains. "They feel like they have to put up with the challenges and everything that comes their way. But in this song I wanted them to feel a bit empowered, to feel that they have to stand up on their feet and defend themselves, and ask for their rights."

Another song of female-empowerment is 'The Lady of the Land of Fire'.  It opens with provocative scenes of the violence and oppression some Afghan women experience and evokes the issue of self-immolation.

"Who says I am a mother to this world?" Sayeed sings. "I am nothing but a burden on the son's shoulders, I am a slave because I am a wife, I am a headache when I am a sister." 

Sayeed says self-immolation continues, particuarly in rural areas where women feel isolated.

"Things are getting better in a way, it’s getting worse in the other. You all have heard about Farkhunda [a 27-year-old Afghan woman who was publicly beaten and slain by a mob in Kabul on March 19, 2015], it’s still like that, still happening in every corner. So many cases are happening in the villages and nobody hears or knows about it. They don’t talk about it on TV, so it’s getting really bad."

Living with death threats

The video for 'The Lady of the Land of Fire' was shot on the streets of Kabul, and released during the time when Islamist hardliners had called for a fatwa against her.

Sayeed says the hatred stems partly from refusing to wear the veil, even when she sits as a member of the jury on the Afghan Star talent show. But given there are "other female singers in Afghanistan that don’t wear a headscarf and they don’t face as much trouble", she feels the real reason must lay elsewhere.

"I’ve realised that the main thing is that I have impact in Afghanistan: impact on women, influence on people and they are scared of that. If I say to the women 'you don’t need to put up with your husband beating you up', she will listen to me and they don’t want that to happen. That’s why they’re after me more than anybody else."

She's become accustomed to going to work in a flack jacket, having body guards, living like a prisoner in her hotel room. But takes heart from the support she gets from her fans.

"A lot of people in Afghanistan support me, it’s their love, their support that keeps me going, it gives me the positive energy to think what I’m doing is right so I don’t need to be scared of anybody. I have to fight on and carry on my path."

Afghan Star

As one of two female jury members on the TV talent show Afghan Star, Sayeed takes pride in encouraging female artists to find their voice. Recently 18-year old Zulala Hashemi became the first girl to reach the final of the popular television music talent show.

"For a woman to make it through to the final, this was a first in Afghan music history, so it was a wonderful thing to happen. And then for me it was great news because I felt whatever effort I’m putting in this county, it’s giving me results. So for me it was a double thing to party on."

Sayeed says it was also highly unusual for a woman from a small village in Jalalabad to take part, and to go so far.

"If a girl is in the finals it means people have voted for her, in the past people never supported a woman to sing."

The Paris concert marked the end of a world tour, but Sayeed cites one of her fondest memories as performing to fans in Afghanistan, not least in Bamiyan where the Taliban destroyed sacred Buddha statues in March 2001.

"I was in Bamiyan twice, and I have like 20,000 audience there, and they were like going crazy, jumping around, happy. That happiness I see in people’s faces, that is everything to me."

Follow Aryana Sayeed on facebook

World Music Matters features Guinean R'n'B singer Soul Bang's, winner of the RFI 2016 Discovery Prize. He talks to RFI about the 'cosmobeat' sound on his recently released second album Cosmopolite.

Fanfaraï is a 12-piece brass band with a 'let's party' philosophy, bringing Afro-Cuban, Salsa, Latin and jazz influences to a chaabi and gnawa repertoire. RFI caught up with musicians Samir Inal and Hervé le Bouche at a "between the two rounds of the election" concert at Studio de l'Ermitage in Paris.