Sigil (2006)
13 tracks, 62 minutes
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The first time I saw Nuru Kane live was at Africa Oyé festival in 2006, the same year as his debut CD, Sigil, came out. I must have already heard the album, because me and me dad were right down at the front. Next to us, there was a scouser who had sufficiently imbibed the festival spirit and probably other heady brews; he looked an unusual sort to be hanging around an African music festival in full trackies and a shaven head. Nuru came out and started singing the track ‘Djollof Djollof’. He was a proper imposing figure: tall, slender and muscular, dressed in a mixture of white shirt and blue jeans but with deep blue and red scarves, guimbri around his neck, singing this deep blues. And our slapheaded pal went nuts: “Jimi Hendrix, la! You’re Jimi Hendrix!” He had a point, you know. Apart from his right-handedness, he did look stunningly like some reincarnation of the axeman from straight out of the desert, with the bass lute as his weapon rather than the electric guitar. It was an absolutely blinding set, and we all had a great time – slaphead was swept off his feet throughout.
Nuru Kane comes from Dakar in Senegal, but with his band Bayefall Gnawa, he explores a connection that has surprisingly little precedent, even now. He brings the music of the Gnawa, the black population of Morocco, which is most recognisable for its use of the guimbri (a large bass lute like an ngoni) and qaraqabs (metal castanets), into his sound alongside the Wolof music of his own heritage and with a big healthy dose of blues too. The Gnawa were originally brought to Morocco as slaves from West Africa, and their music and cultural practices still strongly reflect these roots. Nuru’s songs on this album also forge the connections between his own religious sect, the Bayefall, and that of the Gnawa, as they are both uniquely West African forms of Sufi Islam.
When this album first came out, I got absolutely obsessed with it. Having got massively into blues music around the same time, I reckon this was my first real exposure to African music that consciously drew upon the blues as a way of highlighting their various stylistic similarities and it blew my mind. Two tracks on the album ‘Gorée’ and the aforementioned ‘Djollof, Djollof’ are literally blues tracks with all the other elements added onto that framework, so naturally those were the ones I gravitated to. In them, Nuru’s soulful voice bends in and around the styles so subtly it’s as if they were always meant to be together, but his skills as a straight-up blues musician are such that he could take that one full-time and flourish. And obviously it’s not just the blueses that work well here; the track ‘Niane’ is a perfect blend of all three of the styles, with blues guitar and Wolof-style vocals all over a rollicking bed of Gnawa trance music.
Back when it came out, I played this CD to absolute death. I thought it was perfect. Now my tastes and ears have grown a little more refined, I think that may be a bit of an overstatement, but it’s certainly a great record. He may not be Jimi Hendrix, but if Hendrix grew up in Senegal obsessed with Moroccan music, I imagine he would indeed sound a bit like this.
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