Ya Fama

Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté at last unveils his ravenous, worldly ensemble, Symmetric Orchestra, a Friday night favorite for Bamako residents for years, and now a band touring the world.  For Diabaté, this group is a modern day counterpart to both the venerable Instrumental Ensemble of Mali of the 60s and 70s, and also electric dance bands like the Rail Band and Bembeya Jazz, which modernized and transformed roots styles during those same years.  Diabaté sees himself as updating the concept:  “I wanted to combine kora, ngoni, balafon, and percussion, with electric guitars, bass and drum-kit, so that even if we move towards other cultures, we would always remain guardians of our own.”  But this is not just a grab bag of international styles and influences, another link of the Afropop sausage, as it were.  At the core of this complex undertaking is a more focused Diabaté mission, “to reunite the far-flung corners of the old Mande empire.”  Diabate aims not only to fuse ancient and modern traditions, but to melt away colonial borders in search of pan-African, or more precisely, pan-Mande cultural solidarity.  So the crack of Senegalese sabar drums, and the meshing of kora, ngoni, balafon, and guitar, as well as the Latin tinge so pronounced in Guinean Mande music, old tunes from Gambia, and much more, find homes in these nine, elaborately conceived tracks.  The core group of musicians hail from Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Senegal, and there’s a string section and brass section (led by Pee Wee Ellis) added in the UK.  A total of 53 musicians contributed to this recording.

The set kicks off with a popping praise song to Diabaté himself, sung by Soumaila Kanouté (one of six powerful lead singers on the album), and cranked up with enough brass, strings, voices and percussion to bring to mind the most elaborate Salif Keita concoctions of the late 80s and early 90s.  Capped with a blinding kora solo from Diabaté himself, “Toumani” provides a bracing, if not subtle, launch.  The setpiece track is “Ya Fama,” a swirling, brooding, balafon and kora driven number graced by Kasse Mady Diabaté’s stunning vocal, fluid streams of electric guitar riffing by Fanta Mady Kouyaté, and another knockout kora solo from the man himself.  The title track revisits a beloved griot song from the early days of Mali’s independence, once again, lavished with layers of sonic detail.

“Africa Challenge” delivers the Latin tinge with a distinctly Senegalese flavor—the crack of sabar drums, also heard on a slow, majestic “Mali Sadio,” and Wolof vocals.  Senegal also pervades “Tapha Niang,” which opens with the stately elegance of Mande tradition, and ends in a fiery mbalax pop groove.  For all the brass punches and string swells, voices, percussion and rippling string solos mostly claim center stage, which is a good thing, because it would be easy for Diabaté’s racing kora melodies to get lost amid all this activity. 

One might quibble with details here and there.  Some of the brass parts retain the cursory flavor of keyboard horns, the sort heard on too many West African pop releases.  Some of the textures are almost numbingly dense.  But this is as rich and rewarding an offering as Diabaté has produced to date, the product of many years gestation.  With each listen, one discovers new things, and gradually the hooks sink in deeply.  By the time you reach the muscular funk of the closing track “Single”—a meditation on the solo, Malian gold prospector with intermingled veins of kora and guitar—you’ll be ready to start again.  The Symmetric Orchestra establishes Diabaté as not only the hottest, but also the most ambitious and visionary kora player currently on the scene.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org