Ali farka Touré

The singer from Mali is cultivating his ethnic songs

Paris 

01/07/1999 - 

"Nianfuké", his new album, has just come out in France*. The music is ever more stripped of extraneous influence, strict and reminiscent of his roots. It salutes the return to his native soil.

There are Tamashek, Songhaï and Peuls rhythms, interpreted on the njarka (single-string violin), the njurkle (guitar) or the calabash (percussion). Ali Farka Touré's music continues to make use of ancestral instrumental techniques, despite the fact that western acoustic or electrical guitars still have their role in the interpretation we are offered by this virtuoso of sound (his six-string solos are magical).

There are twelve tracks on peace and love, on Mali, on justice, on apartheid, on education and on working on the land.. A kind of gentle melancholia, engendered by the dust and the heat of this farmer-composer's daily life, casts a spell over his voice and renders the ballads enchanting. They are easy to confuse with the blues common on the other side of the Atlantic. They were recorded in his village of adoption, Nianfuké (which is why the album is called thus), lost in the middle of the Sahel: "peace and serenity".

"Nianfuké" is in fact an album which evokes his homeland, a place where the spirits inspiring his imagination live. Unlike the usual procedure in which western record producers seek out artists in Africa and bring them to their studios in Europe or elsewhere, here it is the artist who invited the producer onto his home ground. He could have copied his compatriot, Salif Keïta, who recorded part of his most recent work in Mali before adding extra value by going to foreign capitals (New York and Paris) to record other bits on the final master tape, the better to conform to the fashionable World trend. But no, Ali Farka much preferred to drag his producer Nick Gold (who was instrumental in the success of the Buena Vista Social Club with Ry Cooder) and Jerry Boys, his sound engineer, one of the best in Britain, over to participate in his own daily universe. Thus, in between harvesting crops, he would record tracks. "They are often stuck in their studios. They should leave them from time to time and take a look at the other possibilities on offer. That's why I persuaded them to come over here for the recording".

Compared to the last album,which won a Grammy Award in 1995, "Nianfuké" is more low-key. Perhaps the singer wants to return to the roots of blues? "Huh! that word annoys me!" complains Ali farka. "Everyone compares my music to that but I don't agree. The word blues doesn't exist in Africa. For me it just means the colour blue, what you use to make clothes whiter. As for the culture that inspires me, that's something else again. I could mention Njarkou or Njurkle. But the word blues really doesn't embody my music".

Four years have gone by since "Talking Timbuktu". Meanwhile, the singer has tilled the soil and looked after his community. The Nianfuké circle takes up all his energy. Even the music is accessory, according to his fellow-citizens, who praise his generosity and readiness to be with them. Farming, an essential part of his activity, takes up all his time. "Look at my hands… I need them, because before the music, there was the land. The guitar comes after my pickaxe".

The "Nianfuké" album, intended to be intemporal, will probably be a success. But he could have invited a western star, like when he played with Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Perhaps that was in answer to the public's demands. But when you ask the singer, he offers an odd explanation: "If you add sugar to honey, it's not because you want to make the honey bitter. Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal singing with me have no effect on what I want to do. I have things, I know things, I do things, that they do not. But I didn't learn anything new with them. There was just the enjoyment of playing with them. I have always told them that honey is never good only in one mouth, it must be shared. I don't regret meeting them". In other words, his music has no need whatever of added value to please the public. And indeed, "If nobody liked it, that wouldn't be a problem. I have the land to feed me".

Soeuf Elbadawi,

*World Circuit/Night&Day