I'm good, I'm good.
You feeling okay? Yes. I'm curious, tell me a little bit about what it was like for you growing up here in Bamako
and being first introduced to the djembe. Oh that's funny. Well I grew
up here, especially in this town Fadigila. I mean I'm gonna say maybe a few miles down.
Here it was a little bit outside the town. Yeah I just fell in love with djembe.
Started playing ken by myself, you know, chasing those girls bringing them
to dance for me so I can play. Sometimes I even if fight them to go to their
parents, "If you don't come I'm gonna kick you if you come out next time". They get scared, and the come and dance.
You were a little rascal. So that's how I found myself on djembe.
Playing by myself for a while and then around the beginning of the 70s, I met this guy his first name is
Tamba, he's an old guy.
Yeah I believe when he asked a lot of people my age everybody knows him pretty much.
Tamba. What's his last name? I think it's Keita. Yeah so he's from Kita.
So first person I played djembe with, that was him. Because Tamba when I first first
got… The first time I saw Tamba having a wedding, in Fadigila, he played djembe and then around noon when
people ate Tamba left. The dunun players they left, and got some players. And then later the
dunun players came. Women needed Tamba to play, but Tamba was not around. The dunun players doesn't know how to
play djembe they just know how to play dunun. They started playing dununn and I just saw the djembe,
I started playing, the guy said "how do you know how to play djembe?" Everybody said yeah he knows how to play
djembe. Then far away Tamba can hear his djembe, you know, that time for someone to know how to
play the djembe you have to be it's kind of something like a secret.
You know, power and djembe, nobody should play.
And then he came to say, "Why are you playing my
djembe? I have this… this could happen…" I said, "No, it's good I'm going to be good, I'm good at it"
And Tamba said, "Well it's good", then he said, "Well, you could not play my djembe because my
djembe may have some juju that might fight you. Let me do this because I like the way you play,
you saved my ass a little bit…" And so… so then when Tamba left I didn't see him again.
Because that time too, they used to do like a competition between towns for the
ballet, so Aruna Sidibe was the first person my town used to hire him to come play
djembe. There was not many djembe players. Fadigila?
Fadigila. So when they hired Aruna, he was a popular man.
So he was hired by Fadigila,
Missira, Banconi, all of that for one competition. Aruna had to figure out how to get to everybody's
rehearsal. So, he dropped some djembe in Fadigila, dropped some djembe another place, but he never come
after the djembe. But you had to pay a down payment in advance so he can come to rehearsal. But he never
shows up. Because he doesn't show up, they take his djembe away from him. So that's the first
djembe to become my djembe. So that was like around '71, '72…
Wait, so he took the djembe, like he took people's advance money and then couldn't he couldn't fulfill all the obligations.
But he left djembes all over the place to convince people and say, "I'm
gonna come", because people think if there's a djembe there, he's gonna come. But he didn't never show
up. So, my town, people got mad because all of my cousins or
leaders they could not take the djembe. And they said, "oh yeah you don't have to
come back, we have a boy here who can play djembe so we're goIng to take hat
boy", so that was me.
They figured out to change rehearsal hours because they know
if they don't do rehearsal early, I'm gonna go sleep. So we did them early, or when they need me they
wake me up, put me on top of djembe and play. Around '73 Sega moved here. So when Sega moved…
Sega Cisse? Now he's your official master. So when Sega moved
we were both in the same town. So I had some guy come see me, a dunun player, I'm
going to show his picture letter to you.
So that guy becomes his dunun player, but they needed another
person. So that became me. So that other guy doesn't know how to play djembe much.
Yeah, so that guy doesn't know how to play djembe that much. Then, you know, I became his substitute player,
and then this djembe accompaniment. Sometimes, if he cannot come, I have to be there to fulfill his place.
But you were playing the wedding before… I met Sega.
But from that first moment you took the djembe, you already knew you could play.
Yes because before that I've been playing ken, and because I don't have a drum but I know how
to play ken. I make djembe sound. I tune my ken to different sounds on it.
You tuned your can to make different sounds.
So like a slap, and tone, and bass…
Yes. So when I met Tamba, he had a big djembe, really big like I'm gonna say 40… a big 40, yeah so
that was the first djembe I played. Then I met Sega he had a big djembe too. A normal Malian djembe at that time was really big. 40- 45.
Yes. So that was the first djembe
I played. Then the small djembe, that's Wassoulou. That's the Wassoulou style, yeah.
So Aruna was playing Wassoulou djembe at that time but he switched later
to Bamako… or just the bigger… A little bigger. And then, what was the music like at that point
because I've heard you tell me before that the sound in Bamako has changed a lot.
That time it was only maybe one djembe, one dunun. One djembe, one dununn all the time so only a few
people had it like, "oh okay we do two djembe one dununn"… At the most.
That has been for a long, long, long, time. Even in ballet it was two djembe, one dununn.
Even in the ballet?
Even in ballet. So when things start getting changed, things got bigger,
and then young people…
Because people make a drumming group. So if they
have like four or five people in one group, if they have one wedding they cannot only bring
one djembe. Sometimes they bring two djembe, one dununn. So at the end when we say oh we have a wedding, we
are five, people decide to buy more djembes, more dununns. We don't want to leave anybody home. We take
everybody, so then more and more, the djembe changed from two instruments to three, four and you know, five.
Little by little. Then at some point, Khassonke music comes more stronger.
So when Khassonke music becomes strong, that's two dununn alot of the time…
Tell us what is Khassonke music if we don't know. Khassonke music is like… dansa. Dansa music and and you know when you compare it like
Khassonke and a little bit of Malinke we call it brigo maninka they play exactly the
same dunun as the Khassonke people so that two dunun became more powerful.
So it's dununs, it's not djembe.
It's not a djembe it's just dunun. But because in the city, Bamako, people don't only play dunun they play dunun and djembe. And it's getting bigger and bigger. But I
always keep saying to them, no we only play Khassonke dunun and Khassonke music, and some Malinke.
But if you use other ethnic groups, I keep saying no we're not gonna play dunun we have to
play konkoni. Just one simple, you know, konkoni.
Okay so you didn't want to play other ethnic groups music? I always disagree with people because it doesn't really make sense to me, you know. It doesn't
make sense like when you decide to play Wassoulou music and Khassonke music. You know what I mean?
Why doesn't it make sense to you? Because the dialogue.
The way the Khassonke people speak and the way Wassoulou, or people in Bamako, or…
People in Keleya area and Fana, they all speak totally different languages. So if you
play Khassonke music last it doesn't make no sense.
That's a good point. The languages are different, so you can't take one language and put it inside the other one. It doesn't fit it doesn't fit.
But in Bamako, people feel like oh we can fit it, but because in the
city, people don't care. But some people, do care because if you do they'll say, "No, no,
no, no, no, you have to find this instrument". Some people really insist if you bring
dununba, they say no you have to go get konkoni. Or, you know, normal didadi because
right now when you look at Tama and his group, they play didadi dunun, we grew up not to see that even in Wassoulou.
Wassoulou dunun is always small.
You're talking about bari, the way they have bari in Wassoulou music now.
Before, bari was not existing in Wassoulou music. So it came from Ségou to go to Wassoulou or..?
No, it came from… Kolondieba. Because Kolondieba is kind of close
to Wassoulou. That's where bari began to go a little bit direction to Ségou.
That's interesting, okay. So what year did these changes start happening?
So you talked about switching from one konkoni, one djembe, to larger djembe.
When did that start?
So it started changing and getting worse like after the 80s.
In the 80s?
Yes, in the 80s it started getting changed a lot. Then, you know, from playing big djembe, I'll go out
to play big djembe. And then when I had Aruna's djembe, that was not the normal small
djembe like Wassoulou but it's more medium close to Wassoulou. As soon as I played that, I liked that
sound. Then I take that to the next level and then make a petit djembe like Wassoulou, to make a djembe with a
really, really, really, really high non-stop sound. I was the first person to do that here.
To take a small drum…
To play a small drum outside, people say oh no you have to be really…
you know, have a lot of experience to do that. So I did that for a long time.
Because back… so, back in this time all the djembes were big and you were the first one to take a small one…
Small djembe in the city to push the idea. Because playing at a wedding was not really my thing.
Really?
No I did not play a lot of weddings. You didn't play at a lot of weddings. I didn't know that.
I didn't play a lot of weddings, people call me and I go if people need me.
But my way, I only care about people getting together to build a good traditional different way for
the stage.
That's was my thing.
Okay so, troupes, ballet, this kind of thing.
That kind of thing, yeah. That was your specialty. Okay so let's take it
from where you left off with Sega. You met Sega but then when did you start getting involved
in troupes and groups like that. Since I started djembe, I got involved from the beginning.
But to make it more strong… so when I met Sega, Sega already been playing for a ballet, you know,
troupe thing from the town. So Sega become my first master to follow, to get the experience.
Otherwise my first djembe teacher never played djembe. How is that?
Because this guy used to be composer of singing and dancing. Building story and stage. So he knows
alot of music from the top of his head and he can sing, but he cannot play. He says I'm not gonna play
djembe.
So that guy's name is Djibril Traore. Everybody calls him Dowyiri. So Dowyiri was the most powerful ballet composer in Bamako. Okay and what were the names of his ballets? He started his ballets in Fadigila, then he got involved in inter-communal,
you know, communal you know one, two, three, so he'll
always be there to lead Fadigila's ballet and the communal's ballet so he always
took his drummer with him. So we were his drummers, me and Sega. So then around the 80s, same
time I went to school, my dad decided to say, "You want to be a drummer? No way".
"I'm gonna take you out of Bamako, and send you somewhere" "you're not gonna be a drummer". Then he decided to send me to Kayes for school. So that was like around 1981, so I went there for the end of
eighty one, two, three. Then '84, I decided to be a trouble maker
because I wanted to play djembe. But I couldn't. So I decided to make a lot
of trouble, and they kicked me out of school. What kind of trouble?
You have to give us a little bit. Fighting at the school, beating…
that thing you used to kick away…
Like a stick?
No, no plastic. You know people take a plastic and put a rock on it and throw to people? So I decided
to make that and fight with my teacher. You fought with your teacher?
Yeah I fought with my teacher and they kicked me out of school. Then I came back to Bamako, and then
since then I got involved with ballet, the neighborhood ballet. When you came back, your father was
still against you playing but you just did it anyways?
I just did it. But my dad kept fighting me then I decided to leave home. Just go and follow djembe or whatever I can
play. And then I got involved in a 1984 competition Sega was the lead drummer so the ballet
become the winner so we went to Biennale.
Tell us what is Biennale. Tell us about it.
Biennale was the national competition in Mali. Bamako, Kayes, Ségou, Koulikoro, Mopti, Timbuktu, Kidal… Sikasso All regions get here to compete. So
they can put like you know maybe 65 people on one stage or 80. So
you have to have like a better story on stage. All of those stories have to be really about what's going
on in their community. All the stories about all of those kings, Mansa Musa, Sundiata..
So it's not just music.
No it's more than just music. Maybe because music is really…
All of that music have to mean something compared to the stories going on the stage.
So my first trainer was really good at that. His first powerful ballet started
getting larger in '80, '82, '84. So that's when I went
on a big stage for Bamako with Sega.
So '86, '88, '90, that was the last one I did.
You did all those years of Biennale. Yes that's when I left. But in '84 I was just there for following
the elders. Just training, but I played a lIttle bit. '82 same thing, '86 I was stuck on
something else so I didn't follow all the training. At the end of '86 I
came last minute. Some guy, Fabla, you know Fabla? Sidiki Camara. Oh no I don't know him.
So now I think he lives in Austria. Sidiki and another guy used to be the leaders, but at some point Sidiki had
a problem with him. He said, "oh you think you're the one, you can do this" So they
called me, then I replaced Sidiki last minute.
You were kind of like the director.
Well I was not a director at that time. That time when '86 Biennale finished, I decided to create my
own group. So that became Komée Diosée. So Komée Diosée, when I created that,
my first trainer came to the group and another guy living in the US named Seydou Coulibaly came to the group. And this
drummer in Banconi named Lassi Flani. Flani came, Bobo Madou, and then a bunch
of drummers and dancers. That's when I become starting becoming a director. Then '86, '88, '90 I kept running my group and then at the same time be in those competitions.
Was it hard to make a living in those years with the djembe/?
Not really because there wasn't alot of drummers. And then, people are together. No matter what happens, you
don't have to worry about how you're gonna eat. There was enough food for everybody, you know, things
was a little bit much easier to get. Maybe every two towns, or three, or four is only gonna have
one drummer and had to deal with it.
That time, me and my teacher crew we only deal with Fadigila,
Djelibougou… you know a little bit of Banconi… There weren't that many drummers,
only maybe three groups. You have Fadigila, Banconi, and that's it. Then when you go to the next
town, where my teacher lived, that time there was Aruna, Djigiba…. Modiba was not there at that time.
And Souley was not there either. So if you look at that, Aruna, Djigiba, and this guy named Siriman… Siriman was older. Yeah, the one with the arm?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, he's blind. There were two blind people but the first blind
person was Djigiba. Siriman used to see… he was from Wassoulou too. But it's Wassoulou Malinke kind of. At one point Siriman got tired and had eye problems then he moved to Djicoroni. At the end he gave up on djembe. Tell us about how… so you're doing
a lot of work with the djembe and you're feeling good, you're feeling happy you're expressing
yourself, and then at some point you started working with larger groups like Djeneba Seck, how did that happen?
Djeneba Seck used to dance right after '86 or…
'88
something like that. That's when Djeneba started getting bigger in singing because
we called some sounds solo singing, only one person sang on the stage.
So she used to do that for her town. Then she got trained with this guy named
Sekou Kouyate, one of the biggest singers, and that's when she decided to make her own
album. So when she made her first album, they decided to build the music group and we became the first musicians.
Okay, because you were already working together.
Yeah we were already working together but
around '84, we both got involved in the next ballet called Babemba.
It
was a group of people who used to be under another ballet. They got in trouble and that ballet kicked
everybody out. So those people decided to say, "Okay, we are the best in the ballet, if you kick us out
we're gonna build another group to get to the ballet" So that became Babemba. Babemba first
started with all of those big dancers and drummers, then I got involved in that because
that director was one of my uncles. He called me, so when he called me it was Francois…
Francois Dembele in the beginning but Francois went back to ballet because the ballet knows
that was mistake. They called Francois back. But they left alot of people behind. So it's the Ballet Nationale du Mali, and then it's troupe Babemba. So troupe Babemba was a…
That time, we all had that Abdoul Doumbia, Mahamane, Shaka, Moussa Keita Madi Keita from Australia, Bourama, and another young man used
to play dunun named Bouba in Sikoroni, and Mache's teacher Tidiani. Okay so there's a lot of people, it's a big group.
Yeah, then Babemba started changing a little bit,
all the people from ballet… ballet started getting back all their
people, they brought them back. So then Babemba changed to a new crew. Then that new crew, we stayed. Me, Shaka, Bourama Sarr, Abdoul, Madi, Tidiani, Bouba, we stayed there then later I left because
that time, I was involved more in every town's ballet and biennale than the regular troupe. Because we always
say okay yeah ballet gets from us because for biennale we created a new group, we made new music, we made a new
ballet.
Then the ballet takes that and we're the one who composed that. So I want to understand this, so in the ballet
they were taking your creations but they weren't… it's like they weren't giving
you credit it was like they took it and they wouldn't give it back to you.
They don't give you credit because they don't think it's totally yours because they say oh you're doing that because
the country, competition.
So the ballet have a right to copy it. They don't give you credit.
But you got credit in Babemba. Yeah I got credit and I went to
district I went to do a little bit with chemin d'affaire and then I went to troupe Sewa, and Bamako…
How did the troupes make make money in those days? They organized shows.
But we really did not care about money, actually. All we cared about was to play.
To get together,
play, have fun, just live. I didn't really care about money when I used to be with them. I only
went whenever I can play djembe – I'll go. That's beautiful.
That was me. And then how did
you end up in the United States? So because I've been doing that and district, back and forth between district. Sewa, Komée Djosée…
so I was between all of them. Then I ended up in the U.S. because of Djeneba Seck.
At that time… some point when a lot of africans started realizing oh we want
to go to the U.S., we want to go to France, so people organized to take others to so they can stay, and they
hired an artist and they say, "We'll give you a job" That time, the western country…
I
understood how African groups really function. You can go and tell them I have 25 people in
my group, or 30 people in my group to all get visas. But technically, it's only five people. So when we went, all 25 people pay money, and when they get there they
get their passports, they go, and they never play. So that's how I went to the U.S. for the first time
to do music and work with Djeneba Seck. And then, at that time, Abdoul already was theren and he
got a chance to meet Michelle, Seydou's wife, to get there early.
Then Seydou went, then
I went to visit to do the work. Then Seydou and Abdoul, they needed a drummer. Especially because
that time my reputation was so high, so everybody wanted me to play. So I went there, played
a little bit then I came back. So when I was there, this girl was there
her name is Cameron, she lived right next to you. I know Cameron, yeah.
So Cameron was my ex-wife, so that's when I ended up there. She speaks a lot of Bamana.
Yeah, so Cameron came here and stayed with me for one year, a year and a half. And then we got married.
She came and lived in in Mali.
So was it… because you just cared about
djembe, was the idea of going to the states – like did that appeal to you or you just didn't care really
at that point – anywhere you could go and play music? Yes. I wanted to just go anywhere to play
djembe. You know, try to show proof to people you know, djembe is a good instrument. Djembe can do
anything. You can play any music, that was my thinking. Did people believe that it can't?
Before, people did not believe djembe can be on everything because people only think djembe is a
traditional thing. It should not be taking djembe as a serious work. So people do not believe that, they think you can play djembe, and then have another career.
So basically changing the djembe's business to a career, to make it really really bigger.
So my group, Bourama Sarr, this guy in Banconi, Flani… so we made it that way.
Because we
didn't do nothing except get a djembe and play. Yeah, that's important and
for people who wanted to be musicians too, but maybe their parents didn't want them to…
Especially my dad, oh my God, my dad went to look for me everywhere. He hated
my djembe playing big time. He had been kicking my ass. He could find me in public playing djembe, he'll
find me and kick me. I was always hiding in the leaves and he doesn't find me. When he leaves I come
back. Yeah so when I moved to the U.S.
At the end, you know, he gave up. One day, before
I moved, he told me, "You only want to be a drummer, you better
start a new career because people never go to the European world with
djembe. And I said, "You never saw that" You know, like building a house like this, a villa,
my dad always believed with being a djembe player there is no way you can do this.
I said, " You don't believe that?"
He said yeah, and I said, "well I'm gonna do that". At some point. so when I start
building my first floor, one day I came to him and I said, "hey, you remember what you said to me? Now I'm
building a nice house even better than your house". Well what do you want to say like now?
Because you've been through this, you've gone pretty far in your career.
Like if someone was to come to… say that you have an apprentice who comes to you in the same
situation you were, and their parents don't want to support them because as a musician
it's hard right? What would you tell them? Right now I'm going to say to them, "I agree you do
music, do what you like, but I'm going to say do something else on the side.
Just in case
it doesn't work for you". That's what I'm gonna say but I'm not gonna discourage
the person and say, "No don't do it, because your parents don't want it". I'm not gonna say that. I'm
gonna encourage the person to do it, but at the same time I'm gonna say, "How about you do music and do
something else on the side to make sure, you know, if this one don't work for you, you have something else to do".
But I'm sure that little Moussa, the little rascal, would not listen to that advice when you were young.
No, no, I did not listen at all. People would say anything to me, I just didn't
care. I only care to go play djembe. If you go against me doing that,
then we have a problem. What was it like the first few
years you were in the United States. It was a little bit strange
because when I went there… so basically I first met this African American
group in San Diego, Bernard Yiriba. So they play djembe, and they already
had the influence of Mamadi and Famoudou, they keep discussing with me – djembe is like
this, djembe is like that, I kept saying no, no, no, you're wrong. Mamadi cannot say it's this way,
because I said Mamadi or Famoudou only know djembe from Guinea.
I said I'm from Mali, I know what's going
on. So it was a little bit strange until… until I find out, I figured
out how to convince Bernard Yiriba to come to Mali. So we've been talking about sumu, madan, you
know, that time when people play madan they call it Djagbe. And then I keep saying what is
djagbe? I said I know djagawara, but I don't know djagbe. He kept
saying, "You know what djagawara is but you don't know djagbe?" I said yeah, and then they said this is
djagbe.
I said no this is madan. At the end I convinced Bernard to come to
Mali, so luckily the day we got here, Bernard… we got here, and all over in Bamako was a big
sandiya party. People call sandiya in the U.S., lamba. From then, Bernard's mind started
changing a little bit from believing only one side of djembe. I started, you know, changing… but that time
when I got there my hand had a lot of problems.
I couldn't play exactly the way I used to, so that was hard for me.
So the influence of Guinea was very strong at that point
in the United States. And it was hard to find people who know the Malian djembe.
I decided to be with them and do what I need to do until
one day I knew there's a lot of Malians in the east coast area, then I decided to move there. So since then, I stayed there struggling finding my way, building, building, building,
building, and then do alot of back and forth to try to see the change of djembe between Malian and Guinean
style because I know Guinean djembe had alot of influence from outside.
Malian people try
to go this way and I keep listening to them. Until I figured it out to… okay now, I know
between what can make Malian djembe better, but that time it was a little too late because young people,
they only see internet stuff so djembe changed from one thing to another thing.
So now, I'm not saying djembe is over completely, but I believe a lot of times
the way people try to understand djembe, I don't think it's gonna work for them for a long
time. Because I know you have to know djembe on a certain level to keep going for a long
time. So I don't see that even here when I came now, I see a lot of people when they play djembe, they
don't play djembe with the right rhythm.
They're always mixing a lot of rhythms together.
Let's talk about that for a little bit. Tell us a little bit more. Well this is something I don't want
to talk about because if I talk about it, my talking might go against a lot of people.
That's fine, but I just meant to explain it like… what I'm
getting at is, from what I studied in the Malian djembe, each rhythm has its own phrases and
its own language. That's what I was asking about. That's exactly what I'm saying. Sometimes
when I even see people play soko music, right. So I hear some people say
soko is for only Guinea and I say that's not true.
Because there's Malinke here in this country.
People play soko here. But a lot of time when I hear people play soko, and you say play
soko, they only play djembe and dunun but I don't hear the actual djembe phrase,
soko, and the djembe. I only hear it with the dunun. That's it. So I only hear the dunun and they're just improvising.
I think another example even in mendiani, people say mandiani, right. But
basically, the older name is a mendiani, mendia. It's like a you know… when you call… it's like yankadi, right. So mendiani music you
hear a lot of time there's some people who even put djembe to accompany it. I say if you do that as a djembe accompaniment, what are you playing as a solo?
Yeah, I know what you mean. …as a djembe accompaniment. So if
you do that as a djembe accompaniment, what are you gonna do for the solo?
You know what I mean? So those kind of stuff I see that a
lot going on in the djembe.
I say wow, what's gonna be this evolution? I'm sitting and
waiting maybe next five years or ten years if there's gonna be any evolution. But one thing that makes me really convinced now a lot of
djembe players don't know djembe… and they're not gonna know. Since Famoudou did an album, and Mamadi did his
album, all the music run exactly the way they did it. All the arrangements they did, they keep copying
exactly the same thing over and over. They only do little change, but there is no creation.
Then I say did the people really hear the djembe? They don't hear djembe, they only hear
what's going on on social media. So they want to take that and they think, "If I play this way,
I'm gonna have a chance to have a white woman to go to France" or go to whatever they wanna go.
I don't think people play djembe anymore because they want to play djembe.
They play djembe
because they want to go to France, or because they want to go to the United States or wherever
the in western world. Because djembe became, you know, business. Djembe became worse than it used to be so
everybody wanna be a djembe player they just go… They're teaching people with their own mind, not actually with it.
But do you think that people do this because they
like it? Or do you think there's also the thought that this is what will get them
success, this is what may get them like a ticket to go to Europe, it's the things that white people want to hear, for example?
Well because it seems if you play in a certain way
you make djembe really big in a certain way, you put like a big muscle, you put a lot
of energy, you know, when those white women see that they say, "oh wow he's sexy, he's
strong, he can play fast".
So they don't see "okay can I try to listen to djembe better and
understand it in a better way". Like for example, when I see this woman from France, Manu,
dancing djembe, one time she talked to me then I told her, I said, "you know
all of those new dances you do, I don't like". Like one time somebody asked me in
the U.S., "oh Moussa sometimes when people play you don't look like you're happy".
I say
correct, I don't like.. I'm not happy. They said why, I said because those dances doesn't
make any sense to me. It's not a djembe dance. They feel that this is contemporary African
dance, it doesn't go like this, it should be simple and heavy on the body. The beauty of
the dance it's not only hands it's not only feet. The whole body should be speaking to something
in the music. So everything becomes what we call marquage.
So djembe is not like that. People know djembe dance and people know with djembe playing,
you don't have to see the dancer to play. You have to do exactly what dunun does, but now
I don't see zero connection between djembe and dunun. I hear you.
Do you think that
there's… what do you think would bring back, or maybe what do you
think would help the situation? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, but I know one thing. I know djembe music is getting boring because I see… if you decide to put it for a big price,
and tell a young crew and say bring something that's going to make sense on a djembe – something new.
You're never going to hear something new. They're only going to copy something we already
heard. But I don't believe djembe's sound is finished. There's many, many, many, sounds people
don't hear, people don't know yet on the djembe, I believe that.
But young people don't care, they just wanna… they
know how to make sounds, be fast, be strong, they wanna go and be done.
So tell us about the album. You've shared a little bit of it with me and it sounds really awesome.
So, you know, every album I did before I did like a little kind of style, a ballet style we used to do in Mali
before. But this time I decided to combine what's going on in the western world in an old way. You know, because when I did that, a lot of
people here who really know djembe said, "Wow, Moussa, we didn't know you can play djembe like all
the old way anymore because you're composing with three dununs, many djembes, no other instrument", you know,
especially all the arrangements I did, nobody played it, nobody did it. But each
arrangement came from the actual rhythm. You know what I mean? When I say I'm playing Soli,
my arrangement and the Soli come from Soli. When I play didadi, my arrangements from didadi come from didadi music.
So for me, somebody who wants to create music on the djembe, you wanna
make a composition, you wanna create a new break. If you break creation from the actual rhythm, N then I'm gonna say now you understand djembe. But if you take your break idea from
nowhere to some rhythm and don't have no connection, then it gets a little bit funny to me.
So that's the innovation is you're making new sounds but you're
using like the bass as the rhythm. And there's singing in it too, tell us
about the singing. Well all the singing is about… all the ways to sing, I used to hear and then
what's going on right now in Mali, I make all the sounds from the old past to the new
generation to remind the new generation this is the way we used to do. Come back into it.
We
don't have to take somebody's culture to our own culture to make it better. We can make our own
culture from the old style to the new generation. You can even create like a music
from the old style to create like a style of afropop like suku's style because
I know I did it before. When I first did it, to samba, that time, Mali music was
like… afropop melody music was flat. When I did it to Tissamba, a lot of
singers started saying oh wow we can change this rhythm to suku's, then
music changed completely from there. It's giving people
a new rhythm to play with. Because somebody asked me even this year
what's between Tissamba and bamanafoli.
I said it's no different. If you
call it rhythm Tissamba, that's not true. Tissamba is vocal. It's a song but some people think
Tissamba can only speak only six, eight beats. That's not true, Tissamba can speak six or eight
or three or four, it depends on how you sing. So when I
did that, a lot of people said oh wow it's not only six or eight, we can turn it to something else.
That's great. And who are some of the people that play and
sing on your album? Who are some of the musicians? I have Djagawara Sali
from Wassoulou. I have Djeneba Seck. I have Kafouné. And then I have Diawi from Dioulafondo, So those four people
I asked them to sing.
That's great. And when is the album going to be
ready? When can people find it?
Well I've been hoping I could do this time, but you know, I got
stuck from doing everything. Then I put the idea down. So now I have to go back to the U.S. and work a
little bit, and then I have two songs I'm gonna do first. Like Papi has been asking me you have
to do a music video to give a new idea. Because he said he knows if I do that
right now, that's gonna give the new generation a new thinking of the djembe that's gonna change.
so when I go I have to send three, four hundred dollars to each person, Sali and
Djeneba Seck so they can do the music video and put it on tv. So really you're
hoping that this cassette or this album will be… it's intended for Mali, it's not necessarily intended for…
It's intended for typical Malian music so people know Mali music have a different
way than them trying to combine the whole thing together.
That's great, and I know you've
been spending a lot of time in Dioulafondo, tell us a little bit about that project.
Dioulafondo, I'm going there, I'm building a compound there you know, a little bit of farming going, little
stuff, and then I want to make some little…. yeah it's gonna be a beautiful place people can
go drum, dance, sleep, whatever you wanna do. Go to water reservations, swim, climbing,
and you know, do hiking… the waterfall's there, not far away from
there. When people go there they will have a nice relaxing time. So I'm not gonna rush to put
it down online but soon as I get some better moves set up, then I'm gonna bring back pictures and videos and put it online.
Yeah, start bringing people over, yeah. People still go there, it's still livable, people can
sleep. It's nice, no mosquitos, not a lot of dust, fresh air.
It's beautiful, when you go there you'll like it. I know you don't have a lot of time to go
see, but when you get a chance to stop there next year.
Well I also wanted to thank you so much, you've been… Moussa's been my host here in Bamako for the
last few weeks so thank you so much for having me. I've had a great time in your house.
Anybody wants to come here, you're welcome to be in my house to discover Bamako and Mali. Yeah, thank you.
So for sure, Malian djembe industry I can say a lot of stuff many djembe players cannot talk about.
Yeah we'll have to do another episode, we can do more.
Yeah and talk about when I was
young, in each town, how many djembe players there was. And some of your travels too
I know you traveled a lot. Okay thank you Moussa.
Hey what's up everyone, Erich from Orchestra Gold here. I do hope you're enjoying this conversation as much as we enjoyed putting it together. If you'd like to support, a great way to do that is to sign up for the Vault. The Vault is our members-only platform, it's got all of our best content. All the videos, all the music, all the wacky psychedelic clips that we do, everything is in there. You can sign up for as little as $5 a month.
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