Album review

Salif Keita, the remix

Remixes from Moffou

Paris 

20/08/2004 - 

Salif Keïta's latest album, Moffou, has been racking up impressive sales of late, with nearly 100,000 copies sold in France and over 100,000 worldwide. Two years after its official release the Malian world music star's album is now enjoying a second lease of life thanks to Remixes from Moffou, a compilation of remixes by leading electro mixmasters and international DJs.

It is rare for an album to enjoy two distinct and separate lives. But that is exactly what has happened with Keïta's 'back to his African roots' classic Moffou, which is currently enjoying cult status on the world's dancefloors. Could this be the start of a new trend, we ask, with veteran world music stars reaching out and trying to attract a younger, urban following in clubland? First there was "Papy" Manu Dibango (always a pioneering force on the world music scene) re-emerging as a dancefloor hipster thanks to DJ Gilbert's remixes of his work in 2001. Then it was the turn of Cape Verde's "barefoot diva" Cesaria Evora who, much to her surprise, found herself the queen of clubland last summer thanks to Club Sodade. The compilation gave Cesaria's nostalgic morna a new twist on DJs' turntables, taking her acoustic style (popular in local bars in her native Mindelo and prestigious concert halls the world over) to a new following of trendy young things on the dancefloor. Now the "Malian Caruso," Salif Keïta, finds his traditional African sounds reworked by leading French and Anglo-Saxon mixmasters such as Martin Solveig and Charles Webster.

This may appear to be a paradoxical move for an album on which Keïta ventured back to the traditional Mandingo roots of his ancestors. But there was no stopping Mandingo rhythms from going 21^st century when combined with infectious electro beats. Young music fans rushed out to buy Yamore (Keïta's duet with Cesaria Evora) and clubbers were soon going wild for Martin Solveig's remix of Madan. Indeed, house music fans and FM radio stations (not renowned for giving any significant airplay to 'pure' world music sounds to date) went so crazy for Madan that Keïta's record company has been inundated with at least 60 requests to use the track on forthcoming compilations. "That's what gave us the idea of taking things a step further," explains Patrick Votan, Keïta's artistic director at Universal Jazz, "Following the success of Madan we decided to ask electro artists who are close to the African scene such as Osunlade, Doctor L and Frédéric Galliano to work on remixes of other tracks from the album. We also got major mainstream electro stars such as La Funk Mob (the defunct duo of Cassius Philippe Zdar and Boombass who got back together for the project), Charles Webster and Luciano on board the project in the hope that this would take the work of Salif Keïta, a unique and original artist, to the ears of a new public."

The resulting compilation, Remixes from Moffou, features three different versions of Moussoulou (by Parisian DJ Ark, Yoruban mixmaster Osunlade and American turntable whizzkid Charles Webster) and three new reworkings of Madan – which means that five versions of the song (including Keïta's original and Solveig's first mix which launched the remix craze in the first place). Other highlights of the album, featuring contributions from eleven remixers from across the world, include La Funk Mob's surprisingly slick pared-down mix of Ana Na Ming which instils the song with a peaceful, almost unreal quality. This certainly fulfills the remixers' mission of adding a new dimension to Keïta's haunting originals.

The beauty of simplicity

Keïta had decided to move in a different musical direction on Moffou. Unlike his 1997 album Sosie (which featured his own Malian take on French chanson) or his 1999 opus Papa, recorded in New York with guitarist Vernon Reid, which actually harked towards electro beats and urban Western rhythms, the Malian star decided to make Moffou a 100% African album - and one that was entirely acoustic. "I wanted Moffou to be a really simple album," Keïta says, "I'd recorded a series of sophisticated electric albums in response to demand from producers who wanted to give my music a more commercial edge following the success of Touré Kunda and Mory Kanté in the 80s. After that I ended up wanting to go back to my musical roots. I knew I wanted my next album to be completely lucid, traditional and acoustic. 'Moffou' was a way of marking my break from France because I'd been living in Montreuil for around ten years or so and then I suddenly upped sticks and moved back to Bamako. It got to a point where I just needed to go home. 'Moffou' was the start of my new life."

Keïta took his new album to the four corners of the world, touring extensively and going down an unexpected storm when he played in the U.S. last summer. "We did a tour of about 30 dates all over the country," he says, "And we played in a lot of clubs and festivals and it was at that point that I realised what a big impact the album had made." Keïta openly acknowledges the role Mali's rich culture of rituals and traditions played in the inspiration of his album, too, explaining that "a Moffou is a type of one-holed flute. It's also the name of a club I set up in eastern Bamako. The club can take up to 200 people and it has a fully air-conditioned room where musicians play. The doors open onto a series of interior courtyards which are all paved with multi-coloured ceramics. It's a great place to hang out and meet people, you know, the sort of place where foreign artists passing through Mali can get together and exchange music and ideas."

The club in Kalabankourou is just the sort of place you could imagine Remixes from Moffou being recorded, in fact. But then maybe those western DJs aren't quite ready to venture out from behind their turntables and meet the real Mali just yet.

Remixes from Moffou (Universal Jazz) 2004

Pierre  René-Worms

Translation : Julie  Street