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Afel Bocoum's third album
Making music political
Paris
04/06/2009 -
Afel Bocoum: I think society's beginning to move in the right direction now. Mali is working towards democracy. The country's about to concentrate on girls' education and there's been a widespread campaign against female circumcision and child labour… Things are obviously not perfect, but a significant amount of progress has been made. What has to happen now is that Mali has to become self-sufficient. We need to work on our irrigation systems and things like that…
The title of your new album, Tabital Pulaaku, means "strengthening Peul culture." Why have you chosen to take up the cause of the Fula?
Peul culture has gone into serious decline. Back in the old days, the Fula people were herdsmen. All they knew about was tending animals. But a series of droughts wiped out their livestock and a number of local herdsmen are unable to renew their stock. Some of them have chosen to leave, others are scraping together a living doing odd jobs… But the Fula are completely lost without their animals! And if they continue accepting any old job they're going to lose their language and their culture. I'm simply sending out a wake-up call to try and make them aware of the situation. There have been examples of Fula herdsmen who have managed to start up again from scratch. They went off to work in Ivory Coast or Nigeria and came back with money to buy new livestock. We've got to encourage initiatives like this and urge the Fula not to give up their traditional way of life.
One of the main themes on Tabital Pulaaku is unity…
Social cohesion is one of the main things I've been fighting for over the years, because it's not something innate. If we don't achieve social unity in Mali, everything will come to a halt. We need to band together because we cannot survive as individuals…
You've also urged Malians not to emigrate to the West…
I'm not doing that to help the West, but because I see it as a problem eating away at the heart of our country. Every year in Niafunke I've witnessed a mass exodus of pupils. We need to do something to stop this plague spreading because a lot of migrants die on their journey. Malians have to realise that we're not poor! It's just that things have been badly organized and there's been an unfair distribution of resources. People are ignorant. They don't understand that the world is changing, that we need to make progress and come up with new initiatives. There's still a sense of timidity in Malian culture. Malians don't like taking risks and I think that's linked to the random nature of the rains which decide our crop cycles.
The reason I took up music was so I could communicate with my brothers who never went to school. In Mali, only 30% of the population is literate. I decided to sing in different languages – such as Tamasheq, Bambara, Peul and Sonrai - to get my message across to everyone… People don't always understand what's going on in the world. Take the current economic crisis, for instance. They know there's no money left, but they don't understand why. I have to keep my eyes open and explain what I see happening around me. Music is a vital medium, a reliable source that people listen to carefully. It's a daily miracle…
You've managed to preserve the traditional heritage passed down from your uncle, Ali Farka Touré, without really modernizing or mixing things…
People haven't got the concept of fusion yet. When I played with Damon Albarn, for instance, they thought we hadn't tuned our instruments properly! I think it's a good thing for us to go back to tradition, but at the same time we have to move on. I think things are about to change with the new generation, though. They're interested in other musical styles and they'll strike off in their own direction soon. My young musicians have already started experimenting with light rock. And good for them if they can make a go of that! The important thing is that as music evolves something of the original spirit should remain. We must never abandon our roots!
Anne-Laure Lemancel
Translation : Julie Street
02/06/2006 -
