Kayira, Vol. 2
4 tracks, 46 minutes
Awesome Tapes from Africa
One of the biggest and most hyped albums on the world music scene in the past few years has been Ladilikan by Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet. Globally-minded string quartet the Kronos Quartet we already know, but Trio Da Kali are a relatively new outfit, that were put together specifically for that project. Ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán brought three of Mali’s most exciting jeli (griot) musicians that as well as being well-versed in traditional music, had also worked in other fields – there was Fodé Lassana Diabaté, a balafon player extraordinaire who has adapted the ancient wooden xylophone to reflect the influence of jazz on his music; Mamadou Kouyaté, son of Bassekou Kouyaté and member of Ngoni Ba who plays a modified bass ngoni lute, and is also active in Mali’s hip-hop community; and Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, daughter of legendary singer Kassé Mady Diabaté and a wonderful singer in her own right, who is very inspired by soul and gospel music. Together, this simple trio of musicians make powerful music that is at once deeply traditional but forward looking, and their collaboration with Kronos Quartet was incredibly successful critically, commercially and artistically – it is a musical relationship that has continued past the album’s life cycle.
It was an honour to meet Trio Da Kali on their first visit to the UK, when they were in London in (I think?) 2012 for initial meetings with the Kronos Quartet. They came and gave an intimate performance and seminar at my university, and it was a joy to hear and see the intricacies of the music and instruments up close. They were lovely people too.
So it was doubly interesting when only a few weeks later I stumbled across Kayira, Vol. 2 from Trio Da Kali’s Hawa (although with a slightly alternate spelling) on Awesome Tapes from Africa, in which she’s in a musical context I’d never heard her before. Born into a long line of griot musicians, Hawa had no choice but to take on the role too (it is a hereditary profession – you cannot become a griot or renounce it, you either are or you aren’t). Her music is therefore inextricably rooted in the jeli tradition, but that doesn’t mean she can’t also be a pop star. This is pop music as made in a culture of ancient, living traditions.
The tape is undated, but I’d guess it’s from about the mid-2000s, but its cheesiness level strikes me as an early 90s sort of sound. There are traditional acoustic instruments such as kora, ngoni and djembe, as well as some typically Malian guitar, but the rest of the accompaniment is bulked out by synthesised sound. The djembe is joined by drum machine, and all of the rest of the programming is even more interesting: a series of bleeps and bloops coalesce to form what is unmistakably a balafon part, a synth saxophone sound provides wailing solos that would be more expected of an electric guitar, and even more abstract synth timbres are used to take the music to other places entirely, sometimes even echoing (to my ears) the sound of the algaita shawms of the West African Sahel. Over all the electronic wizardry is Hawa’s voice, stunning and soaring, singing traditional jeli repertoire, including the famous title track ‘Kayira’, meaning ‘peace.’ I don’t mean to downplay Hawa’s wonderful vocals, only that it is the least surprising thing about the album. She sings amazingly soulful and deeply Malian music and it’s no different here – to have that offset by this crazy, slightly reggaeish synthfest next to acoustic Malian instruments is what gives this album its unique appeal.
This isn’t ‘world music’ – it’s not music that is carefully and subtly polished and moulded to fit the ears of Western listeners as comfortably unfamiliar and pleasantly exotic. You won’t hear it played in your local hippie crafts shop. This is Malian pop music that gives the people what they want to hear, and it’s a real thrill to walk through that bustling foreign market and feed your own ears something unexpected.
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