Vieux Farka Touré

The future of Niafunké blues

Niafunké 

06/04/2007 - 

Vieux Touré, son of the late great Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, has just brought out a debut eponymous album, mixing traditional music from the Timbuktu region with a host of modern influences. Joined in the studio by a group of talented local musicians, Vieux Farka pays tribute to his father while striving to mark out his own musical identity. RFI Musique investigates.

When your bear the surname Touré in Mali, people instantly know that you belong to the great family of Mandinke marabouts. And when your name is Farka Touré you gain even more respect as the son of the late great guitar hero Ali Farka Touré. At the age of 26, Vieux - the only one of Ali Farka Touré's sons to have launched a musical career - has a lot to live up to.

Multiple influences

Undaunted by the challenge of following in his legendary father's footsteps, Vieux has divided his time between the peace and calm of Niafunké (200 kilometres south of Timbuktu) and the hustle and bustle of Mali's buzzing capital, Bamako, seeking inspiration in both. As a teenager, Vieux had to fight long and hard to follow his dream of playing the guitar. The Farka Touré patriarch insisted none of his children would ever get involved with the music world and all its corruptions. Vieux Farka, who was sufficiently stubborn and hotheaded to go against his father's wishes, went on to master the guitar with the greatest of ease and soon began writing his own material and singing (something his father only moved on to later in his career).

Vieux Farka moved to Bamako to train at the National Institute for the Arts, honing his natural guitar talent and gaining in-depth knowledge of traditional rhythms. Vieux already possessed impressive musical knowledge, inherited first-hand from his father, the Malian guitar hero renowned for bringing the blues "back home" and reuniting it with traditional Tamashek, Peul and Songhai rhythms.

Ali Farka Touré famously embarked upon a field trip of Mali in the 1970s, equipped with an old reel-to-reel Nagra tape recorder to immortalise the undiscovered musical treasures he might find. One generation on, Vieux Farka - like most of Mali's other young 20-somethings - is plugged into a more international music culture via the latest MP3-player. He claims he listens to "everything on it – from reggaeton, rap and Jimi Hendrix to John Lee Hooker and traditional music!" However, when it comes to songwriting, Vieux also honours his father's memory, often sifting through the old cassettes Ali Farka made in the '70s in search of inspiration. And it is maybe this willingness to listen to history that has helped forge Vieux's distinctive guitar style.

History - and the contemporary world he accesses through his MP3-player. Vieux's debut album is a fascinating melting-pot of musical influences on which he is not afraid to throw in new ingredients from time to time, enhancing his core musical flavour with an unexpected brass section, a reggae bassline or a Peul flute playing Songhai rhythms from the Timbuktu region. "I see myself as being a traditional musician," Vieux says, beaming as he tucks into a local speciality of grilled meat, "but I'm from the young generation - and that means I can get away with a bit of innovation from time to time!" 

Tribute to the Old Lion

Vieux's debut album inevitably harks back to the past, too. Two tracks, Tabara and Diallo, actually feature Vieux duetting with his father. Vieux remembers that at the time of recording together in the studio his father was already very sick. "This wasn't the first time we'd played together," he says, "But it proved to be the last! I'd love to have supported Ali in concert, you know. It would have been great to play more with him and take our collaboration further… Obviously, I'll never be able to do what my father did. But what I can do is try and carry on what he started."

What's more, Vieux has received some prestigious support in his project to build musical bridges between the old generation and the new. Toumani Diabaté, the kora virtuoso who won a Grammy Award for his joint album with Ali Farka Touré, In the Heart of the Moon, guests on Touré de Niafunké, a song about the great Touré family (traditionally all from Niafunké). "That song's a real tribute to the Tourés," smiles Vieux, "a song we played with Toumani Diabate for Ali. Ali was an absolute lion!" Bassékou Kouyate, another griot and formidable expert on the ngoni (a traditional lute featuring three strings or more), contributes to Vieux's album, accompanying the son just as he did the father. Symbolically, Vieux's album also builds bridges between cultures, as well. It was produced in the United States by Eric Herman and Dave Ahl. Herman, but recorded "at home" in the Bogolan studio, in Bamako, with Yves Wernert at the studio controls.

In the rare breaks in his hectic trans-Atlantic tour schedule, Vieux Farka likes to "touch base", returning home to Niafunké to see his mother, family and friends and enjoy a bit of well-deserved peace and calm. While Vieux insists on drawing a line between his father's musical style and his own - "Ali is Ali…and Vieux is Vieux!" he declares - he is keen for Niafunké to play as important a role in his career as in his father's. "I agreed to make this album with American producers on condition that 10% of the profits from it were ploughed back into Niafunké through donations to local hospitals and charity organisations," he says, "I want to go on helping local people from Niafunké so that one day we get to a point where everyone gets to sleep under a mosquito net and there's enough medicine to go round. People won't have to go to Timbuktu any more if they need medical treatment."

Vieux claims he has no intention of continuing the family tradition in politics, however, (his father, Ali Farka, was mayor of Niafunké for almost two years). "No," he insists, waving the suggestion aside as unworthy of further discussion. "The only thing that counts for me is music and playing live. I'm not interested in politics. But music? Music's my whole life!"

 

Vieux Farka Touré (World Village/ Harmonia Mundi) 2007

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Julie  Street