Edito de JammIn Baye Fall (1), we have something called a njaxas. It?s the multicoloured clothes that I wear most of the time. And the music on this album is a kind of jarasse because it has many colours. If you unite this patchwork of colours what do you get? You get harmony and harmony is life. Musically, I?m very open to new ideas, new colours. That?s the source of the variety in my music. I could compress myself, box myself up and adhere strictly to some notion of what Senegalese music should be. But I want my music to touch people all over the world, to travel all over the world, to communicate with the world. So in order to do this you need to have something that the world can understand. I make African music. I might be Senegalese but I?m touched by many far-flung corners of Africa and by its different countries and languages. With each new album I try to present music that is in some ways, dare I say it, pan-African. The wealth of ?Jamm? resides in its variety. It?s as if it was an enormous basket, from which each can choose what they like; some cheese here, butter there, chocolate, cream, an apple, some fruit. It?s a cocktail and I like a cocktail. (1) The Baye Fall are a spiritual sect founded by Cheikh Ibra Fall, a renowned West African marabout or religious leader, which based on the precepts of Sufism and Islam. The Baye Fall believe in work as a form of adoration, and in devotion to their spiritual guide. 1. CONIA I respect the marabout who can pray on your behalf and bring about positive things; someone who is tolerant, who has pity and tries to help the weak. But I have no respect for the marabout who has acquired knowledge and doesn?t use it for good, but rather to ruin people. It is this charlatan I criticise here. It?s also a song about jealousy, which can be either a positive or a negative emotion. For example if someone has a material thing you admire, it can inspire you to work hard to achieve it or it can cause you resentment and we need to work against this negativity. ?Conia? is sung in Jula which is a dialect of Bambara spoken in Burkina Faso where I was born and grew up. 2. JAMM ?Jamm? means ?peace? in Wolof, the main language spoken in Senegal. Everybody needs peace in order to live a better life and to achieve serenity. Even if you have all the gold in the world but don?t have peace, you won?t have a life. But some people say they want peace and then they go and kill other people. Peace is also necessary in the home, between a man and his wife, in the office between workers, everywhere. It must inhabit the person. If it lived in everyone, something which would require a huge effort today, then we wouldn?t be fighting all these wars. The song has plenty of different colours and different sources. Musically, I adopted a bit of a Songhai approach from the north of Mali in this song. The vocal, guitar and bass were from the original demo I recorded at my bass player Thierno Sarr?s small studio in Dakar. We took these demos and added percussion and trombones in a Dakar studio and Pee Wee added his sax in London. Spontaneity is what?s behind the strength of this album and all this was done very spontaneously. 3. IL N?EST JAMAIS TROP TARD This is song from 1971 by Bembeya Jazz National from Guinea Conakry, which they called ?Doni Doni?. This version has a mix of Manding and Congolese influences. And I?ve added some of my own lyrics, including the phrase, ?My friends have all gone, but I?m still here, always here, to serve my country.? Many youths leave Africa to seek their fortune in Europe using dangerous methods of travel. They say ?Barcelona or Die!? There was this one youth, for example, who I met in Barcelona who left Dakar in a pirogue (traditional canoe). It was incredible to hear about his journey at night in a storm with so many others, just one handheld torch between them and the waves crashing over their little boat. It was horrific. What drives people to such a journey, just to haul themselves out of poverty? In a sense this song is a warning directed at those youth. It says, ?Listen, you mustn?t fantasize. Don?t think that Spain or France is El Dorado. We?ve travelled in those places and we know what goes on there. You have to work very hard to earn your living. Whether you?re in England or Dakar, it?s the same thing.? Sometimes it?s worth leaving your country, but not at the risk of dying to work washing dishes. There are plenty who die en route. They dreamt of finding their paradise, but they found themselves in hell. That young boy I met in Barcelona is back home now in Senegal. From time to time he comes to my place and we talk. I say, ?Listen, stay here, be canny. It?ll work out one day. You?re young and intelligent, don?t be in too much of a rush.? If all the youth were to take off on their adventures, what?s the future for our country? 4. WARICO ?Warico? a song about money, a criticism of materialism. It is adapted from a recording from 1978 by Amadou Balake, a popular singer from Burkina Faso. If you fall ill in Africa today and you can?t afford medicine or a hospital bed, you will die. In Europe, you have the social security system ? even a tramp is taken care of when he falls ill. So this is partly a message to our leaders and heads of state: Education for all. Health for all. Food for all. And then you will have peace. It?s normal for the youth to dream of material things and of a better life. They?re of an age to dream. But there?s so much unemployment today in Africa. If those youths who have nothing, see people driving around in fancy cars, living the sweet life in beautiful houses, wasting money, that discrepancy will not be easy. The strong and rich must be there to help the weaker, poorer people. 5. SANKARA Many heads of state in Africa act as if they were royalty, abusing power and never wanting to relinquish it. But Thomas Sankara(2) was an exemplary president. He didn?t waste taxpayers? money. As soon as he came to power, he took away all the huge Mercedes from his ministers and replaced them with Peugeot 205s, just to set an example to the rest of the population. He was from he same mould as Kwame Nkrumah, Samora Machel or Patrice Lumumba. Even Nelson Mandela. If we had other presidents like that in Africa, we wouldn?t be where we are now. When I was young, back in Burkina Faso, I saw a lot of Sankara. My dad was like a father to him and to plenty of other military men like him. They would arrive on their motorbikes, in full uniform, park outside the house and come in to chat and talk. I remember my father making a prediction: ?I?m going to pray,? he told Sankara, ?that one day you become president.? And when my father came to live in Senegal, in 1982 I think it was, one day he was at home listening to the radio and he said, ?Yes! They?ve elected my son president!? ?Which son?? I said. ?You know, Thomas Sankara,? he answered. He was always coming to our house in Burkina Faso. God has heard my prayer.? That?s very strong. (2) Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, was assassinated along with 12 other colleagues on October 15th 1987. The perpetrator was Sankara?s former ally and supporter, Blaise Compaoré. 6. SEYNI If you go back to the 1950s and 1960s, there wasn?t much European pop music in Africa ? the main import was Cuban music. And there weren?t any music schools so the Guineans or Malians who wanted to learn music went to Cuba. It was usually the Ministry of Culture who sent them. That?s what happened to Bembeya Jazz, to Las Maravillas Du Mali and many others who took advantage of that system. So they were all influenced by Cuban music and the Cuban colour invaded West Africa. ?Seyni? was an African salsa standard when I started in music in Burkina Faso, back in 1975. The first time I held a microphone in public, I was trembling, and this is the song I sang. The head of the Orchestra Volta Jazz hired me on the spot and I became the little brother of the band. I?ve been singing the song ever since, but I?ve never recorded it until now. The first day we worked on it with my bassist Thierno Sarr, for the demo, it was as if I was doing a big ?rewind? on my life. I was transported straight back to that first time, where it all started. I never understood the Spanish lyrics at the time. I was just like a blind man who reads a lyric with his heart. I remember, if I wanted to learn a lyric, I would borrow a 45-rpm record and put it on at 33-rpm so that it lagged. Then I could easily capture the words and write them down on paper, but I couldn?t tell you what any of them meant! But they were always talking about love?about los ojos de esta mujer! For me, the two biggest influences of that Cuban style were Laba Sosseh from Gambia and the great Abelardo Barroso from Cuba. I pay tribute to them both on ?Seyni?. Laba Sosseh left us two years ago. He was the first African musician to bring back a gold disc. He was the greatest Afro-rumba singer in Africa; I?m convinced of that. 7. DIEUF DIEUL The son of my spiritual guide Cheikh Amadou Bamba gave me the words of this song which is sung in Wolof. It says thanks to the almighty Allah. It?s a typically Baye Fall song. There are some religious people who are against music and talk about it as if it was satanic. Those people should restrain themselves. If you go into a church, for example, you see the piano in front of you, and you have that religious singing or Gospel. If you go to the mosque, the muezzin who calls the faithful to prayer invokes the name of Allah and his prophet with a melody that is really divine, a melody that can even instil the desire to pray. And what is that melody if it?s not music? It resonates in the beyond, as far as paradise or whatever you believe in. Music is only the reflection that exists here on earth. That?s my reasoning. Why do these people think that music is not a proper occupation? On the contrary, it?s a noble occupation! My faith lives inside me, it stays in my head and goes with me wherever I go. You give everything to your work for the sake of your own peace of mind. That?s what I believe. There?s peace and there?s interior peace, and interior peace is best. Why do the Senegalese attribute so much importance to Serin Touba?(3) He did many things. He was miraculous, a man of God, a saint. If you consider his life you cannot but believe that he?s a saviour. I think that it was Serin Touba who saved Africa from darkness. He saved us from darkness! He refused to become a Christian and the colonial chief sent him to the Mayombé peninsula in Gabon. So many great men who refused to submit to the colonial will were sent there, and were exterminated. But Serin Touba came back safe and sound, by the Grace of God. And furthermore, he forgave them all. You know, tolerance is the key to wisdom. There?s nothing else. Serin Touba tolerated them all. He called out to a huge mass of his people who were in danger of being lost and said, ?Listen. Come to me, and together we can go towards the Creator.? People think that he founded a brotherhood. But it?s not a brotherhood?it?s a call to go towards the Creator. (3) A Wolof title meaning ?The Cheikh of Touba?, by which Cheikh Amadou Bamba Mbacké, founder of the Mourides, is known in Senegal. Mouridism is a huge religious and cultural force in West Africa, and throughout the world. Cheikh Ibra Fall was a disciple of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, and went on to found the Baye Fall movement, to which Cheikh Lô belongs. 8. BOURAMA This song had its genesis two years ago when I was touring with Pee Wee Ellis?s show ?Still Black Still Proud?. During the sound checks, Pee Wee, Guido the drummer and I played the song as an instrumental and it grew bit by bit. When we came to record it for this album I improvised this story about a troubled boy who takes a bicycle without asking permission and about the man who used to go off to the fields to work on that bike. This boy puts holes in the inner tube. The seat is all wonky. The frame is twisted. He?s a little imprudent provocateur! 9. NE PARTI PAS This is an old song called ?Moya? by Doh Albert from the Ivory Coast, which we used to listen to around 1978. The title is in very bad French, but that?s on purpose! It?s like the French that can be heard in the Ivory Coast. There are people who kill and traffic limbs for ritual sacrifice. Small children are particularly vulnerable. Imagine a little innocent buy without his parents, trembling. These people see that there?s no one to protect him and they take advantage of his innocence to do evil. We have to speak out about this, we have to warn people. Parents must protect their children because your child is the most valuable thing you have. The child himself never asked to be born, so he must be looked after. It?s you and your wife who wanted him, and so, thanks be to God, he?s here. 10. FOLLY CAGNI Imagine you wake up in the morning, and you live in this huge apartment block, with many different flats, many different inhabitants. You have to share the lift and after your morning coffee you meet your co-inhabitants in the lift and no one says good morning to each other. Each person stays in their little corner knowing full well that everyone else lives in the same building as they do. It?s enough to unleash a small war! Saying ?Good Morning,? is a wish. It expresses the hope that someone will have a good day. It?s a small gesture but it?s the key to peace. It?s a wish for peace. Here in Africa, if people who have never seen each other before cross paths, they still say, ?Good day,? as they pass by. Simply, just like that. But in Europe?well, civilisations are very different from one another?but when you say ?good morning? to someone, he thinks, ?Do I know that person??!!? ?Why is he saying good morning to me??!!? Cheikh Lô (Edited & translated by Andy Morgan) Production & Musician credits Cheikh Lô Lead & harmony vocals Guitars Congas, timbales & shaker Drums (Conia, Dieuf Dieul, Bourama) Thierno Sarr Bass Guitars (Bourama, Dieuf Dieul, Seyni) Baye Manhanta Diop Electric guitar (Warico, Conia) Omar Sow Electric guitar (Jamm) Cheikh Tidiane Tall Electric guitar (Il N'est Jamais Trop Tard) Pee Wee Ellis Tenor saxophone solos Thierno Koite Saxophone Wilfried Zinzou Trombone Omar Puente Violin (Seyni) Tony Allen Drums (Il N'est Jamais Trop Tard, Ne Partis Pas) Daouda Ndiaye Drums (Warico) Sebastian Rochford Drums (Jamm) Thio Mbaye Sabars Khadim Mbaye Sabars Samba Ndokh Bmaye Tama Dave Patman Guiro (Seyni) Fatou Diawara Backing vocals (Jamm, Conia, Warico) A World Circuit Production Produced by Nick Gold and Cheikh Lô Recorded by Thierno Sarr at his home studio Dakar, Senegal, Abdou Caba at Ethinic Studios, Dakar, Senegal and by Sonny at Livingston Studios, London. Mixed by Sonny at Livingston Studios, London Assistant engineer Dan Ingall Mastered by Tom Leader Lire la suite