Nuru Kane, the observer

Senegal without borders

Paris 

02/02/2010 - 

With his guembri (traditional string instrument) always to hand, the Senegalese Nuru Kane looks back over his years in London on his second album Number One Bus. While remaining faithful to Gnawa music, key to his artistic identity, Nuro on this album adds a pronounced blues touch to his work.

Like his distant ancestors the Fula people, Nuru Kane has always had a nomadic spirit. Today, the child of the Dakar medina has moved on to a small village in the Puy-de-Dôme region in the heart of France, where he has been living for over a year. The village itself comprises little more than a hundred inhabitants, some cows and a few tractors.  

 “On my return from England where I was lucky enough to play my music, I wondered whether I wanted to stay in Paris. My brother invited me down to where he lives, in the Auvergne, and I fell in love with the region. What I liked first was that there was less stress. And then I discovered a different way of interacting with people. I like that,” explains Nuru Kane, who refers to himself as "sénégaulois" ("Sene-Gaullish").

On the Buses

Without doubt this desire for the country life is a reaction to the very urban experiences he recounts on his new album Number One Bus. For three years, he took the same bus from his neighbourhood in Bermondsey in South London. It was a great vantage point for observing people. “You’ll find all of life on a bus – no need to leave it to be inspired. People get on, get off, some get up for pregnant women or old people. There’s a certain sensitivity. Hard times as well, for those caught travelling without a ticket. And violence too: there are the young hooligans who get a kick out of annoying everyone who gets on.”  Each passenger has his or her own way of doing things. Musically, Nuru reflects this diversity by adding to his basic sound (which he calls "bayefall gnawa") some blues here or some funk there – even some mbalax at times.

It took Nuru some time before he hit on the right musical path for him. In his youth, he “spread myself around,” he admits, playing bass in an Afro-Mandingo group. He would listen to Touré Kunda, Osibisa, Fela and all the Anglo music they would play on Gambian radio. When the group had line-up problems, he would find himself singing, playing guitar or songwriting, while still playing bass for other artists.    

At the age of 25, in 1998, he left his country for France. It was a difficult decision to take, because it meant giving priority to his personal ambitions over those of his group. “My departure meant the death of the group,” he sighs. He clearly feels a tinge of regret about that, but he is at the same time grateful for what his voluntary exile has brought him, career-wise.

First, there was his three-title mini-CD in 2001, Diamono Euro, designed to educate African immigrants about the coming of the euro. The project was funded by the Fondation de France as part of its program for the currency switch, and was followed by a tour of immigrant residences across Europe.

Discovering guembri

But it was in Marrakech, which he was visiting with friends as a tourist, where he made a fortuitous and career-changing discovery. “We were visiting a market. I heard a sound, and it put me in a trance I’m still in. That sound was the guembri.” He quickly bought one, as well as a few cassettes of guembri music, which he brought back to Paris to teach himself to play. As soon as he had the opportunity, he went to see and hear the Moroccan and Algerian Gnawa musicians to familiarise himself with their culture.

He was at this stage of his development when he was invited to perform at the Desert Festival in Essakane, Mali, in 2004, having got himself noticed in the tiny Paris Gnawa scene. Nuru, at the time still unknown, seized the opportunity. He went down so well in Mali that ten days later he got a call from the BBC inviting him to the UK to talk about his music.

A major world music label offered to record his first album, Sigil, released in 2006. Nuri was nominated in the best newcomer category for the World Music awards show organised by the BBC. It was the start of an adventure that  Number One Bus continues to explore, with the aim of breaking down the barriers separating different music genres and languages

Nuru Kane Number One Bus (Iris/Harmonia Mundi) 2010

On tour in France

Bertrand  Lavaine

Translation : Hugo  Wilcken