Album review

Boubacar Diabaté

Sénégal - Montréal

Paris 

03/08/2009 - 

Sénégal - Montréal was created as a homage to the Senegalese griot, Boubacar Diabaté, who died aged 80 in 2006. The album gathers a selection of recordings made throughout the career of a musician who chose to live in Francophone Canada and transmit his knowledge there.

Considered as "Quebec’s first great griot", Boubacar Diabaté laid down his hat in Montreal in1986, when he came to take part in the first Nuits d’Afrique festival. Far away from his native Casamance, he made it his goal to spread knowledge about his culture – that of the Mandinka people – and their instrument : the kora

The former Senegal Ballet member not only passed on traditions by teaching his art to his pupils, he also adapted to the way of life in his host country. His exchange-based approach can be felt in the Sénégal – Montréal album : in his duet with the Quebecois singer-storyteller, Michel Faubert, Boubacar Diabaté offers an unusual version of the Gilles Vigneault title, Tit nor.

And for Québec Montréal, against a traditional backdrop of music and song, he applies very personal lyrics, referring to the Canadian towns he has discovered. Although most of the ten tracks were played live during radio programmes or concerts involving no more than three musicians, the project also includes a few titles created in the studio in 2001, and even goes back to 1968 with Diouna, which was on the LP Chansons africaines d’hier et d’aujourd’hui recorded with the Guinean Mamadou Seck. "Two authentic African griots", was written under their names on the cover of the vinyl record produced by the Guadeloupean, Gilles Sala, an ardent defender of "negro African" music released at the time in France under the Barclay label.

It was his desire to add another brick to the bastion of world music that seems to have inspired Boubacar Diabaté throughout his long musical career. He was one of those builders in the shadows who merits being brought out further into the light.

Boubacar Diabaté Sénégal - Montréal (MMM) 2009

Bertrand  Lavaine

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper