Blog September 20, 2012
Blogging Backwards- Festival in the Desert, Part 2
In advance this weeks encore of our Festival in the Desert program, we sifted through our archives, and found some of our original reporting from 2003, when we were on hand to watch three unforgettable days of music unfold at camp in the deserts of northern Mali. Given the tragedy that is currently unfolding in Mali, it stands as a reminder of a more hopeful period in the nation’s history.
The last day of the Festival in the Desert for the Afropop team started with a hike across the dunes to the VIP encampment for a morning interview with U.S. Ambassador Vicki Huddleston. The ambassador explained to us that the Tuareg Eriday family had been asked to truck spacious traditional tents from their Tessalit, hundreds of kilometers away, to the site for the dignitaries attending the Festival, including the Ambassadors from France, the U.S., Norway, Mali's Ministers of Culture and Tourism, and others. Fabrics decorated the inside walls and a crimson carpet was spread over the sand inside. Nice digs! By the way, the Eridays were hoping for some compensation for their effort, but they may have ended up like so many of the people who made this festival happen: volunteers.
Ambassador Huddleston's past postings include several musical islands near and dear to Afropop, most recently in Cuba where she was the head of the U.S. interest section in Havana, and before that Madagascar. She was eager to talk about a major current project they are helping out on to bring Mali's cultural life to the National Mall in Washington DC this summer as part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival. I told the Ambassador this project was of paramount interest since not only do I love Malian music but I grew up in the DC area and the Folklife Festival was always a highlight of my summer, including one of the very first Festivals in the early 1970s, when as a young kid, I saw kora master Alhaji Bai Konte from the Gambia play kora and sing. Wow! All that music from a 21-string instrument! And what a warm, gentle, gorgeous voice! My older brother and sister and I went up after his concert to chat with Bai Konte and to touch his instrument. We bought his record, Kora Melodies from the Gambia, and played it over and over. That experience was the first inspiration for the whole Afropop project, which began over a decade later. So props to the Smithsonian, and to the muse, Alhaji Bai Konte, rest in peace.
Ambassador Huddleston took off in a small convoy of 4x4s on her way back to Bamako, accompanied by two heavily armed Malian army guys. Banning Eyre and I walked to our next interview with Mali's impressive Minister of Culture, Cheick 
Oumar Sissoko. He had moved me with the words he spoke at festival's opening ceremony, words about the beauty of Mali's diversity so evident at this Festival in the Desert. Minister Sissoko is a renowned film-maker first and foremost so he knows all about the struggle to make one's art. He spoke with great excitement about reviving the tradition of the Biennales from the 1960s and 1970s in Mali where music and dance groups from all over the country competed for regional and national honors. This was the time of Modibo Keita in Mali and Sekou Toure in Guinea when state support of indigenously based arts helped these newly independent countries find their own voice and share it with the world. The first national Biennale of this century will take place in Bamako in September and Afropop hopes to be there.
Next stop was an Afropop tent session with two young singer songwriters from the Timbuktu area. Male Toure plays guitar in Haira Arby's band, and his friend Baba Djire was recommended to us by bassman and producer Barou Diallo. Barou said, "You're going to hear about this guy," and given Baba's sweet, high voice, he may well be right. The two singers shared a small ensemble featuring guitar, a traditional lute, and a single percussionist. Baba Djire's song "Agabori"--Sonrai for "that's beautiful"--was particularly memorable. The title is a phrase that Ali Farka Toure first taught me when he hosted our Afropop group in Timbuktu in 1998. (It turns out many musicians we met at the Festival remember vividly our two Afropop visits to Timbuktu--the first in 1998 and the second in 2000.)
As we finished this session, I was late for an interview with Aicha Bint Chigualy, so Alpha and I ran off to find her while Banning stayed behind to interview Sekou Maiga, leader of the group Nabi from the Niafunke region (Ali Farka Toure's hometown).
Ambassador Huddleston's past postings include several musical islands near and dear to Afropop, most recently in Cuba where she was the head of the U.S. interest section in Havana, and before that Madagascar. She was eager to talk about a major current project they are helping out on to bring Mali's cultural life to the National Mall in Washington DC this summer as part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival. I told the Ambassador this project was of paramount interest since not only do I love Malian music but I grew up in the DC area and the Folklife Festival was always a highlight of my summer, including one of the very first Festivals in the early 1970s, when as a young kid, I saw kora master Alhaji Bai Konte from the Gambia play kora and sing. Wow! All that music from a 21-string instrument! And what a warm, gentle, gorgeous voice! My older brother and sister and I went up after his concert to chat with Bai Konte and to touch his instrument. We bought his record, Kora Melodies from the Gambia, and played it over and over. That experience was the first inspiration for the whole Afropop project, which began over a decade later. So props to the Smithsonian, and to the muse, Alhaji Bai Konte, rest in peace.
Ambassador Huddleston took off in a small convoy of 4x4s on her way back to Bamako, accompanied by two heavily armed Malian army guys. Banning Eyre and I walked to our next interview with Mali's impressive Minister of Culture, Cheick Oumar Sissoko. He had moved me with the words he spoke at festival's opening ceremony, words about the beauty of Mali's diversity so evident at this Festival in the Desert. Minister Sissoko is a renowned film-maker first and foremost so he knows all about the struggle to make one's art. He spoke with great excitement about reviving the tradition of the Biennales from the 1960s and 1970s in Mali where music and dance groups from all over the country competed for regional and national honors. This was the time of Modibo Keita in Mali and Sekou Toure in Guinea when state support of indigenously based arts helped these newly independent countries find their own voice and share it with the world. The first national Biennale of this century will take place in Bamako in September and Afropop hopes to be there.
Next stop was an Afropop tent session with two young singer songwriters from the Timbuktu area. Male Toure plays guitar in Haira Arby's band, and his friend Baba Djire was recommended to us by bassman and producer Barou Diallo. Barou said, "You're going to hear about this guy," and given Baba's sweet, high voice, he may well be right. The two singers shared a small ensemble featuring guitar, a traditional lute, and a single percussionist. Baba Djire's song "Agabori"--Sonrai for "that's beautiful"--was particularly memorable. The title is a phrase that Ali Farka Toure first taught me when he hosted our Afropop group in Timbuktu in 1998. (It turns out many musicians we met at the Festival remember vividly our two Afropop visits to Timbuktu--the first in 1998 and the second in 2000.)
As we finished this session, I was late for an interview with Aicha Bint Chigualy, so Alpha and I ran off to find her while Banning stayed behind to interview Sekou Maiga, leader of the group Nabi from the Niafunke region (Ali Farka Toure's hometown).
I spied Aicha barreling across the sand in her 4x4. She was obviously upset with me for being late. But she pointed northward and said, come to the Mauritanian encampment and we can talk there. Turns out that worked out fine since they had a lovely camping spot under thorny shade trees that made a great backdrop for our film interview. She played her traditional griot's harp, tidnit, and sang and told me her story about growing up in a griot tradition and then going on to make a pop band, while still maintaining her traditional role as a griot at wedding celebrations and so on. Mauritania gets almost no exposure on the international stage, so it was great to meet to some of the country's leading artists here at the Festival.
