Mali is likely to be certainly one of Africa’s poorest nations, however it stays a musical superpower. The centre of the medieval Mande empire has been the breeding floor for dozens of worldwide success tales, together with the likes of Toumani Diabate, Ali Farka Toure, Rokia Traore, Oumou Sangare, Fatoumata Diawara, Boubacar Traore, Afel Bocoum, Bassekou Kouyate and Amadou & Mariam – to not point out Tuareg rockers like Tinariwen, Tamikrest and Songhoy Blues.
Salif Keita is likely to be essentially the most well-known of all of them, however he was all the time the odd one out. Not solely was he an albino in a society that regarded albinos as cursed, however he was an outcast from a minor royal household, competing with storytelling griots who tended to return from an ancestral lineage of musicians. It helped that he was blessed with a unprecedented voice. Keita can flip a jerky, conversational, arhythmic lyric into one thing that flows completely; making any quantity of syllables match into no matter area he has, improvising like a jazz singer, including bluesy thrives and beauty notes, usually leaping up an octave or extra right into a spine-tingling register.
It’s a voice that has labored throughout a number of genres. He began out in 1970, singing Afro-Cuban son and Congolese soukous with the Rail Band; a couple of years later he was performing rumbas, foxtrots, French ballads and Senegalese wolof songs with Les Ambassadeurs. In 1987 his breakthrough solo album Soro heralded the start of the digital griot, setting Keita’s voice in opposition to a Peter Gabriel-ish backdrop of sampled koras and digi-drums. Since then he’s collaborated extensively – albums produced by Joe Zawinul, Vernon Reid and Wally Badarou; duets with the likes of Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Grace Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Bobby McFerrin, Roots Manuva, Richard Bona and Cesaria Evora. In 2018 he launched Un Autre Blanc – a closely synthesized, elaborately orchestrated studio album that includes Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Angelique Kidjo and Alpha Blondy – and introduced in interviews that, approaching his seventieth birthday, it might be his final LP.
That was till 2023, when he was invited to play an unplugged set at a pageant in Japan: simply voice and acoustic guitar, with occasional accompaniment on the ngoni (a form of harp-like banjo) and percussion. Keita cherished the setting, realising that it introduced out a aspect of him that had been hidden throughout his five-decade profession, and he remodeled his resort suite into an impromptu studio to file this album.
So Kono – which interprets as “contained in the chamber” within the Mande language – is Keita’s most spartan LP but. He has all the time stated that he feels self-conscious about his guitar enjoying, seeing it purely as a software for songwriting, however right here it takes centre stage – hypnotic, advanced, repetitive patterns, performed clawhammer type, plucked with the flesh on the suggestions of his fingers, like a medieval lute participant, often with a capo excessive on the fretboard.
A few of these songs rework older compositions. “Laban”, a bit of desert rock on his 2005 album M’Bemba, is changed into a splendidly baroque miniature, that includes a Martin Carthy-like guitar sample. The already fairly spartan “Tu Vas Me Manquer” (‘I’ll miss you’) sounds much more superbly heartbroken, whereas “Tassi”, a bit of bubblegum Latin pop from his 2012 LP Talé, is changed into a hypnotic meditation. Sometimes, Keita’s metrical, minimalist guitar patterns are set in opposition to the florid, tumbling ngoni thrives of Badié Tounkara, like on the mild minor-key waltz “Awa”, which interprets as Eve, and serves as Keita’s tribute to womankind; the craving declaration of affection “Cherie”, which additionally options accompaniment on cello and speaking drum; or “Soundiata”, a mesmeric tribute to his royal ancestors.
There are tributes to buddies. “Kanté Manfila” is devoted to a late bandmate of the identical identify who was in Les Ambassadeurs, whereas “Aboubakrin” is called after a profitable politician. One is a eulogy, the opposite a joyful music of reward, however each have the identical temper – trance-like guitar patterns and hovering vocals that sound a muezzin’s name to prayer.
Most startling of all is the ultimate observe “Proud”. Right here, as an alternative of enjoying acoustic guitar, Keita switches to a simbi, a Malian harp-lute, with a bulbous calabash physique. He performs a metallic, jangling riff whereas howling the lyrics – partly in English – on the higher finish of his vocal register, half historical bluesman, half Pakistani qawaali singer. “I’m African, I’m proud,” he howls. “I’m albino, I’m proud/ I’m completely different, I’m proud.” It’s a becoming summation of a outstanding profession.
