Cheikh Lô

From Senegal to Brazil

Paris 

04/11/2005 - 

Cheikh Lô, an artist who has always stood apart from the rest of the Senegalese music scene, continues to wend his way off the beaten track with Lamp Fall.  Following five years after his last album, Bamba Gueej, this new opus finds the soulful-voiced singer weaving a patchwork of rhythms from Senegal and Brazil.

Nick Gold, director of World Circuit Records, has renowned flair when it comes to world music. And his famous instinct paid off once again when he suggested that Senegalese artist Cheikh Lô should head off to Brazil, carrying a demo of his future album in his luggage. Cheikh followed Gold's advice and spent three weeks in Salvador de Bahia, from whence he returned with a rich mix of new sounds.

Cheikh Lô, whose two previous albums were produced by his compatriot Youssou N'Dour, has already drawn on multiple musical influences in his work. And one would have been forgiven for thinking that his Brazilian trip would have resulted in fusion overload (notwithstanding the fact that Brazilian music's roots do lie in Africa, after all). However, Lamp Fall - a logical follow-on from Cheikh Lô's previous albums, Ne La Thiass (1996) and Bamba Gueej (1999) - features just the right dose of melting-pot sounds.

Cheikh Lô's third album, partly supervised by producer Alé Siqueira, features a healthy mix of guest stars, too, in the form of Senegalese guitarist Lamine Faye, Cameroonian bass-player Etienne M'Bappe and American sax maestro Pee Wee Ellis. And then there’s the haunting sound of David Moraes's cavaquinho (traditional Brazilian guitar) threading its way in and out of guitar, bass and sax. Meanwhile, the tama, the famous underarm drum played by Samba N'Dokh, enters into a thrilling dialogue with no less than forty percussion instruments. These are pounded out by the Ilê Aiyê, Bahia's famous carnival band, on a lively dance number entitled Sénégal-Brésil.

Salvador de Bahia

Cheikh Lô's distinctive vocals echo throughout Lamp Fall, weaving the Senegalese-Brazilian patchwork together in style. The album opens with a surprise, and surprisingly accomplished, version of Sou (a classic by the Guinean band Bembeya Jazz), played on accordion and bandolim (the Brazilian version of the mandolin). Cheikh Lô appears to have had no trouble fitting in with local life in northern Brazil. "I felt good in Bahia," he says, "People were really warm and welcoming. You can really feel their African origins, both in their general way of being and their rhythms." Culture shock was hardly an issue for the singer, guitarist and percussionist, who has always sought out new musical horizons in his work.

Cheikh Lô no doubt owes part of his multiculturalism and open-mindedness to his Senegalese parents who left their native land and relocated to Burkina Faso in the early 50s. Cheikh Lô was born in Bobo-Dioulasso in 1955 and grew up in a multicultural, multilingual environment right from the word go. "Burkina Faso shares a border with Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Benin and Togo," he says, "It's a real cultural crossroads. I grew up speaking Bambara and Dioula as well as Wolof and, besides that, we used to listen to a lot of different African music from all over the place."

Cheikh Lô was just 21 when he launched his career, joining a group called Volta Jazz in Bobo-Dioulasso. Honing his budding musical skills as the youngest member of the group, he came into contact with musicians of different nationalities, from Congo and Ivory Coast to Guinea and Burkina Faso. "Everyone had their own style," he says, "and we'd put them all together and do our own versions of all the big hits of the time. I think it's a logical follow-on that that experience and that widening of my musical horizons should be reflected in my music today."      

Breaking the m'balax mould         

Just as logical, one might add, that Cheikh Lô should stand apart from the rest of the music scene in Senegal, where he returned to live in the late 70s. After having worked as a drummer for Ouza (another musical outsider on the Dakar scene) and after having spent several years in France, Cheikh Lô was never going to fit easily into the m'balax mould (the sound which has dominated the Senegalese music scene since the early 80s). That does not mean Cheikh Lô balks at the idea of working m'balax (a syncopated rhythm that forms the basis of Wolof percussion) into his musical mix – along with snatches of reggae, Mandinka music, Congolese 70s sounds (his new album features a superb reworking of the Orchestra Elegance Jazz classic N'galula) and Latino-Cuban beats and funk on the title track, Lamp Fall.

Cheikh Lô's new album, recorded between studios in Bahia, London and Dakar, makes a colourful, coherent whole. It is, perhaps, the musical equivalent of the brightly coloured patchwork robes the singer wears symbolising the war on waste waged by Baye Fall (the Mouride brotherhood he belongs to). Cheikh Lô continues to draw on his Islamic faith for songwriting inspiration, too. Santa Yalla, a song on his new album, is dedicated to the memory of a number of Senegalese artists who died in 2004 and 2005, including the famous singer-philosopher Ndiaga Mbaye. And the title track pays homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of Baye Fall. The lyrics to Cheikh Lô's other songs are sometimes lacking in originality, however, revolving as they do around the themes of love, friendship and childhood and delivered in a vaguely preachy tone. In fact, these songs vary little from the well-worn themes thrashed out time and time again by his m'balax compatriots. It can only be hoped that Cheikh Lô goes back to his habit of veering off the beaten track on future albums!

Cheikh Lô Lamp Fall (World Circuit/Night & Day) 2005

Fanny   Pigeaud

Translation : Julie  Street