release date: 1995
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,78]
producer: Wally Badarou
label: Mango Records - nationality: Mali
Track highlights: 1. "Tekere" (5 / 5) - 3. "Africa" - 4. "Myanyama" - 5. "Mandela" (4 / 5) - 6. "Sumun" - 7. "Seydou" - 8. "Dakan-Fe" - 9. "Folon"
4th international studio album by Salif Keita following the album Amen (1991) released on Mango (sub-label of Island Records for 'world' releases) and produced by Wally Badarou (Jean-Philippe Rykiel produced tracks #5 and #9).
The album was one of the first I listened to with Keita. The track "Tekere" is absolutely great and has the same wonderful up-tempo African / Mandé style that I had discovered on various releases from the early 1980s with African traditional folk music. Keita doesn't play any instruments himself but composes and sings and he has a brilliant and warm singing voice, which sounds like... no one else. Most often his music is referred to as world music, which I consider an extremely poor label to music produced and / or released in Africa, Asia, Scandinavia, or South America. Keita makes Mandé folk music and African popular music inspired by local traditions and Western popular culture, and combining elements from jazz, reggae, latin, blues... On top of that, he often adds a style variation of dance. Now why is there no musical style labelled 'folk dance'? Because that's really what this is... also. Despite being an album with (African, Mandé) lyrics that I absolutely do not understand any word of, I've read that the wonderful track "Tekere" is a song "about jealousy, about too much jealousy is easy turning into maliciousness". Anyhow, the music here is quite original and absolutely wonderful.
Folon is nearly as great as Amen and naturally comes with a warm recommendation.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
