"Senegal Fast Food"

This album marks three special occasions. The first being that this is the guru of global music Manu Chao’s first musical effort since 2002’s live Radio Bemba Sound System (a harkening back to his rowdy days with Mano Negra) and his first studio work since 2001’s Proxima Estación: Esperanza. Secondly, it is the arrival of most commercially viable release of the veteran married couple, known throughout francophone Africa as “Le Couple Aveugle du Mali”—The Blind Couple from Mali—Amadou & Mariam, to date. Since it’s release earlier this year in and other parts of Europe the album has achieved Gold status, reached the top of the French album charts and has been awarded a Les Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of a GRAMMY. Though the commercial viability is due to the contribution, both in talent and prestige, of the aforementioned Chao, Dimanche à Bamako (Sunday in Bamako ) is in no way a departure from or compromise of the couple’s musical vision. Nor is it a hijacking on Chao’s part. Their previous international releases were very much about expanding the possibilities within Malian music, tracing its journey across the middle passage and back again, infusing different styles including Cuban son, reggae, hip hop, R&B and more into their soulful Bamako blues. Their 1999 album Sou Ni Tile is simultaneously Malian, Middle Eastern and Mississippian (or Chicagoan) in flavor. It seems the couple from are as prone to international collaborations and incorporations as their famous producer.  Which brings us to third reason to celebrate—the event of their collaboration with Sr. Chao is mutually beneficial and a logical, natural progression for all concerned.

            Mimicking the natural logic of the collaboration of the “elf prince of world music” with Amadou & Mariam, the flow is that of a Sunday afternoon, unfolding itself organically and unhurried, though never lackadaisical. The album starts off slow and easy with the tablas thumping and sweet choral melodies and harmonies of “M’bifé.” It evokes the Beatles’ “It’s Only Love,” but as if recorded during their India phase—and with hints of reggae. It then rolls into a hypnotic instrumental composition by Manu Chao, “M’bifé (Balafon).” With each subsequent track the album picks up momentum and sonic girth like a musical tumbleweed.

            Chao’s presence is everywhere. He has writing credits – collaborative, and in some cases exclusive (“M’bifé (Balafon),” “Taxi Bamako”) – on over half of the album’s 15 tracks. Apart from musical contributions (his signature guitar work, vocals, programming, and backup choral singing appear in some combination on all but one of the songs), he also produces and edits the album as well as lends his name to the whole project, sure to increase U.S. album sales. True “Djanfa (la trahison)” sounds like a rootsier “Bongo Bong,” and “Sénégal Fast-food,” has all the prerequisites of Chao sound: phone call audio samples, reggae, listing of cities (“Dakar Bamako Rio de Janeiro”), horns, rich, layered sound beds, but the Malians add new perspective to the typical Chao formula, and know how to incorporate him into their vision.  Devoid of the Atari bleeps, and extended ambient and obscure audio samples that border on the abstract that were ubiquitous on Chao’s previous studio efforts, Clandestino (1998) & Esperanza, Chao relies more upon the organic soulfulness of the blind couple. He weaves in and out like the clever creature he is, laying down samples and harmonizing, but also leaving the couple with space to do their own thing.

            On “La réalité,” Chao’s chiming of “soul fire,” the funky bass line, the reggae inflected acoustic upstrokes, the use of ambient noises such as crowds, sirens and spoken words, the danceability of it all and the political bittersweetness of it’s message: “C'est la triste réalité / Mais... dansons ensemble”—It’s a sad reality / But let’s dance together—make it one of the most distinctly Chao tracks of the 15 songs here. The reality here, however, is that Chao didn’t write this song. Both words and music are by Amadou Bagayoko. Even when the impish maestro stands back, the album adheres to the same laid back, captivating scheme, further evidence that these artist are natural collaborators.

            Since leaving Mano Negra in the middle 90s, Chao has been creating music that draws upon both the hypnotic sounds and looping rhythms that are characteristic of so much of Malian music, and the genre-bending and tendencies towards fusion that are characteristic of Amadou & Mariam’s later work as well.  The two entities (Chao & A et M) are coming from different histories, different paths of world music growth, but they all find themselves on the same road.

            Manu, born to Spanish expatriates living in France, grew up in the multicultural hotbed of Paris , drawing from all ethnicities that he came across in his hometown to fuel his musical passion, starting bands with family members and friends. Later his infamous tour throughout South America , under the protection of Guerilla militants, further expanded his musical and political horizons.  Amadou & Mariam come from a very different world. After having met during the mid-70s in the performance troupe of the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako, ’s capital, the couple fell in love and started making music together. They traveled West Africa and in 1988 began recording in Abidjan .  They released 6 cassettes in West Africa before their first international CD release in 1997.  By then, they had visited and made an extended stay in Paris , from that point on, their base of operations.

            In 2003 Manu, after having heard the couple on the radio while driving in his car, was overwhelmed with an urge to collaborate with them. He sought them out in a Paris recording studio, liked the songs they were creating, and proposed that he produce the incipient album. The result is Dimanche à Bamako .  Within the theory of evolution there is the idea and, at times, the fossil record to prove, that there are multiple paths that can lead an organism to a particular state of evolution. Two separate types of organisms’ evolutionary paths can unfold in markedly different ways but ultimately arrive at the same point.  Something like this has transpired with Manu Chao and Amadou & Mariam.  Perhaps best of all, Dimanche à Bamako shows that world music isn’t a static article, but a process like all else in this world.  It is a direct reflection of global humanity, ever changing, mutating, weaving in and out of the fabric of history and society and in rare instances, crossing paths in ways that change the future.

Contributed by: Zev Frank for www.afropop.org