Baaba Maal visited New York in October, 2009, to introduce his new album “Television.”  But not with a concert.  Instead, he appeared at Joe’s Pub for “A Conversation with Baaba Maal.”  It was a chance to hear him speak about the work he’s been doing, not only in music, but also with the Africa 2015 Millennium Project, and other things.  Baaba and his producer/guitarist Barry Reynolds played a few songs at the end.  But mainly, this was a chance for Baaba to speak.  And in English!  When Afropop first met Baaba, he barely spoke a world of English.  These days, he is quite eloquent.  The day before the show, Bannning Eyre sat down for a one-on-one.  Here’s their conversation.

Banning Eyre:  So Baaba, welcome back to Afropop.

Baaba Maal:  Thank you.

B.E.:  It’s been years since we’ve seen you and years since we’ve heard new music from you.  This record Television is really a new direction for you.  Tell me the story.  How did this record come about?

B.M.:  You know, 5 years ago I did mention I’m going to start writing songs for my next album, but I’m going to take my time, because I wanted to do something different from Missing You. And, I went to Philadelphia first, four years ago, and several times in the studio of The Roots.  Because several times I mentioned to the people of my record company in London that I’m looking for first something with drum and bass, on the top of what I have from Africa, from my cultural background, but I was looking for drum and bass and I need to go to visit some people who come from a different environment like The Roots.  I saw one of their concerts.  I was there with Masamba [Maal’s longtime talking drum player].  They called him on the stage, and I was fascinated by the way they performed, so I was looking for a particular sound, I went there with Barry Reynolds. We worked on something like 10 or 11 songs.

B.E.:  With The Roots?

B.M.:  Not with The Roots, but in Barry’s studio, and we had a lot of people coming and jammin’ with us so we went back with some of their sounds.  That was the first step of the writing, so I knew the sound, the direction.  I started to know the direction that I wanted to take. And then Barry suggested to me, after I explained to him that I wanted to share the writing with people who come from different backgrounds, and now he said to me, “Look I think the Brazilian Girls, who I met in New York and I have been working with, will be the right people, especially Didi and Sabina.  They could come to join you and participate in the finishing of the writing.”  I said okay.  Then I listened to some of their stuff, Brazilian Girls, and what really caught me in the beginning was the voice of Sabina. She is very unique because I did feel that it comes from Europe, but also you can feel that she did travel a lot, and she did get a lot of influences that I was looking for. And then, I thought maybe Didi will be fine because that I wanted to get some of the electronic sounds in the album, and I’m not sure I can get that from any African instruments.  I also wanted to use the talking drum, and Mama Ndiaye playing the guitar in the Senegalese way, the West African way. We have that, we have the djembe, we some other instruments, but I wanted some electronic sound, so why not Didi?  This is how it started in London writing with the Brazilian Girls, with Barry Reynolds also and Jim Palmer.

B.E.:  Wow.  So it was Barry who hooked you up with Brazilian Girls. It seems like you really clicked at that point with Sabina and Didi?

B.M.:  Yeah, you know they were really magic when they came first time to London, the first day we went to the studio I explained how I wanted to make this album, which was just to play music of course but at the same to stop at some point and to talk about these issues, like to talk about politics, to talk about education, to take the point of view of someone who’s not from Africa.  And then we pick up the instruments and play, always sharing information.  This is how we wrote songs like “Miracle” or “Television” or “Cantaloupe” It’s about talking about these issues and at the same time picking up the instruments, playing a little bit, coming back to the talking and this talking was nourishing to the writing of the songs. And it reminded me how I did work in the past with Mansour, in a traditional way, with some other musicians when we just sit down and play with our instruments in Africa and on the top of that we create songs.  It’s the same thing on another level. 

B.E.:  There’s a theme of technology that runs through the ideas in the record but also in the sound of the record. Let’s talk specifically about the song “Television.”  What are you saying about Televison in that song?

B.M.:  Well, you listen to the first part of the song, before I sing, and you can hear a voice talking to a child, like to say, “This is person who every time comes into our living room through the television.  He seems to be coming from nowhere, and he seems to know everything that is happening in the whole world.”  Television is very fascinating because in Africa people seem to believe at 100% whatever television says. And I say, especially for the young ones, it can be really dangerous if television falls into the hands of someone who is very corrupt, for example.  But at the same time, it’s a very powerful and interesting instrument, and in the way we were talking about the experiences of television, I was saying to Didi and Sabina that two years ago I went to South Africa on the invitation from Oxfam, and they took me to this program at Big Brother House. They make a break in the program at Big Brother House for 2 weeks to introduce people by surprise, to talk to the kids who are coming who were from Nigeria, Malawi I think, Uganda, and South Africa, the rest of people in the house.  And everyone else can follow also the program and we introduced there to talk about the Millennium goals.

I went there by surprise with my guitar. The kids were very happy to see me, and I played some songs with them.  One of them had the guitar actually so we played a song, then I said, “You know, we have a project in Africa which is the project which includes all the musicians and it’s called Africa 2015.  By 2015 we want to achieve the Millennium goals, specially education and the fight against poverty. So, now you are here in front of the TV, and everyone will recognize you when you go home.  Please when you go back if your friends aren’t in school, talk about the importance of education.”  I went there to talk about education, and for two or three days that I stayed in Jo’burg, I see all the SMS [messages] on the TV.  All the country was saying, “Yes, Baaba Maal is right, and education is really important for the new generation.”  So I say:  wow, if we use the television to talk about important issues in Africa, this is what we don’t have, a way to inform people, and to connect them.  If we use television in that way, it can be a very powerful instrument, so I think I’m going to call this album Television.

B.E.:  Oh, that experience led to the album title.  Interesting.

B.M.:  It led me to write this song.  This is just where I saw: Wow, television can be very dangerous, but at the same time it can be really great for Africa, because in the small villages, people who don’t speak French or English or Portuguese, now they are fascinated by television because every evening it is right in the living room or in the middle of their house.  Because now people in the African TVs they include the African languages, they promote the African videos for example.  All the videos that we make in Senegal, people can see them, they enjoy the dancing, the clothes, they see for example, the wrestling, which is getting very popular.

B.E.:  Really wrestling is coming up?

B.M.:  It’s coming up. Thousands of people at the stadium, and these wrestlers are paid millions of the CFA, and everyone is behind his television when it happens, so since that started to happen on the TV, now everyone is connected to the television.  I’d say that’s power.  We should use it in a good way.

B.E.:  The power is there.  You just have to use it for the right things, eh?

B.M.:  But I say it can be very dangerous also.

B.E.:  That’s for sure.  I remember when we spoke, I think in 2005, at Saint John the Divine the church here an AIDS Day event, and you were telling me about the Millennium Program, which I guess was just starting then, the 2015 program.  How do you feel it’s going?

B.M.:  Every Program that we have is still going.  It’s slow but it’s strong, because everyone seems to understand what’s going on.  That’s the first, most important thing, is to give the information and everyone know that something has to be done about the Millennial Goals. When it comes to the musicians, after that time we met, we did share some time for writing a song, all together in . The first step of the writing was in my studio there with Manu Dibango, Mamadou Konte, who has since died, was there.  He organized everything.  Youssou came, and we had also Boncana Maiga and we went back and worked on the song.  We just hung out all together, with Kofi Olomide, Meiway from Ivory Coast, and later on Cheb Mami, Angelique Kidjo, Mahmoud Ahmed from Ethiopia—he came to Dakar.  Most of these musicians came to Dakar to do this song.

There is an album for Africa 2015, and it’s connected to the UNDP. They use it to promote the Millennium goals. So we did that and we did a great concert there.  Everyone signed a paper, and agreed to take the engagement to go back home, whatever they do, whatever they play, whatever interview they do for anyone they will talk about the Millennium Goals and promote the plan. 

B.E.:  Excellent. I want to ask you about “A Song for Woman.”  Now you’ve written other songs about the concerns of women over the years. This one’s kind of interesting because it seems to me the song has an optimistic song, but the sound of the song is actually quite dark and brooding.  It seems like kind of a paradox. Tell me about that.

B.M.: The first line of the song doesn’t come from me.  The first line of the song is, like I use often, from the proverbs come from the tradition. It’s a proverb. And a kind of lesson that people say to any woman who’s going to get married, and take care of her family. And the proverb says a good a woman is the one who stays at home take care of the harmony of the family, respect her husband, and raise up very, very well the children. And that proverb is very old. And people used to sing it when I was in the group Lasli Fouta. In the song, I just pick up that part and say yes, that’s true.  Still now women have the ability to keep the harmony in the family, in the African families, but at the same time, we’re starting to see that women are taking a place at the front lines when it comes to politics, some are becoming ministers, deputies, some are even head of countries, like…

B.E.:  Liberia.

B.M.:  , yes. Some are at the front line when it comes to music you see, now we have more African singers, female singers, like Oumou Sangare, Angelique Kidjo and others standing up and taking care their careers when it comes to the economy. Since we’re starting to see all these changes things are starting to change also little by little in Africa. Because I think women have the ability to be together in Africa, even to make a party where the men are on this side and women on this side.  The women are going to succeed because the women are going to be present and when they say, let’s meet up 6 oclock, everyone will come, let’s put the money even a small part of money, women will put it and we’ll follow their project.  This is what we need, people who believe in things and make it happen, and at the end have even a small solution people can have it.  I think this is what we need in Africa. And all the governments, all the leaders should give more power to women to see what they can do for the continent. I’m sure that they can do it. So that is “A Song for Women.”

B.E.:  When I say that the music of the song  feels sort of brooding and dark a little bit, maybe that’s because despite what you say, it’s still a hard fight, isn’t it? There’s a lot of resistance.

B.M.:  Yes, a lot of resistance and that proverb also is so deep.  It’s not something to keep women at the corner, and in the family, and the community, where for me it is so dark.  They have to be at the front and to have the lights on them, I think, like the young people also.

B.E.:  Like television, that proverb can be used for bad things too, right?

B.M.:  Right.  [LAUGHS]

B.E.:  The song “International” is very interesting and I think that seems to tie in very well with the whole Millennium 2015, Africa 2015 vision.  It’s about countries working together in a sort of internationalist vision, and I can see how this one might have grown out of those conversations you were having in the studio. Tell me the story of that song.

B.M.:  Yes, when you listen to the first part of the song, I’m singing in Fulani because I want to talk to the Africans, to say, Hey, everyone wants Africa to get up and to be on the same level, like other countries, to be part of the international scene. We can be part of it because it’s a great continent, with strong cultures.  The energy is there.  When you look at the women, you look at the young generation, it’s a beautiful continent, so we can make it.  But we have to stop all the wars, all the diseases, all the problems, the conflicts, and to take care about education.  Then we will be part of the international scene, and it’s easy, if we just do that.  Education.  Technology and education are things we can really give to the next generation, because for me, they came to earth for all these things.  By the time we come to the third millennium, we should use these things like everyone else.

B.E.:  Let me ask you about another song, “Miracle.”

B.M.:  “Miracle” is interesting.  It’s one of the songs that is not just related to Africa but to the whole world.  Like I said, we were talking a lot in the making of this album.  Sometimes we would stop for 2 hours, and like intellectual people, we would stop and discuss what we were seeing.  At the time, Sarkozy was elected, Bush was elected the second time not long before.  People wanted changes.  In some parts in Africa, we were talking about the financial crisis, so we were saying we would need a miracle to go through the turbulence that the world was seeing.  It was a simple thing. Waiting for a miracle.

B.E.:  So when you look around now, do you see any miracles?

B.M.:  I see some things changing.  For example, Barack Obama was elected here in the States.  We need some more miracles from Africa because there is a lot of people suffering all around the world from all these problems, from financial crisis, from the wars, from Global Warming.  For example, you see this year in Senegal, in Mali, in Burkina Faso, people had to face a lot of flooding that they can’t explain.  People were not ready to face all these changes in their life. So we still need this miracle.

B.E.:  We still need a lot of miracles, yes.  I also love the song “Dakar Moon.”  This is one where I hear a continuity with your older music.  It has a kind of Latin swing to it.  This is a really lovely song.

B.M.:  That’s more intimate between Barry and me, because that’s one of the first songs that we put together when he came.  He came to Dakar before going to the studio with The Roots, before we met Brazilian Girls, just to talk about the making of the album. Barry came, like you came today, with his guitar. I tols Barry I was not in Dakar, but outside, in the place that I  made Missing You. So he said, “I’m coming there.  I want to see your place because I hear there is a lot of Mango trees, melon and things like that.” I say, “Okay.  Come.”  He came, and we just sat down in the middle of the house. I pick up my guitar, he picks up his guitar. I said “Barry, for once I need to have a song where I will have to sing on the top of different chords”. Because it doesn’t happen oftenly when we do African music, we use simple chords. So I want to try that because my voice is an instrument and I want to express myself like just don’t think about the words, but give me some chords.  So the chords come just like that.  It was at the beginning of the night and Barry said, “Wow, look at the moon. It seems that you can grab the moon here. You can touch it.” I said this is it. If you go to Fouta it’s even much more closer to you.  And we start talking about how beautiful is the environment in Africa, and people seems to forget to look at. And this is how the song “Dakar Moon” just came out. But I was not supposed to sing it in English. And I say, “Oh I’m going to try English!”

B.E.:  I think it works very well. It feels very natural.  Say, before we stop, you mentioned earlier the festival that you’ve been involved with for a number of years now. Give us a little of the history of that and tell us what the Festival, where it’s at now.

B.M.:  That’s one of the reasons that I did take my time to make this album because I said to myself, I did so many albums that for once I’m going to make a break and concentrate on putting with the people from Podor, a festival.  Because everywhere I go, I meet people who and play in different festivals from here to Glastonbury in London… We can have similar things in Africa.  We have the space; we have the people; and we can do something really exceptional. So, I make a little committe, and first I went to the  President Wade, Abdoulaye Wade.  I went to see him with my notes.   I say after more than 20 years of traveling, of playing music all over the world, I learned a lot of things when I go to perform in all these different places.  I see how people are putting on their events, and I want to try it at home.  I want to do it, it can be continuity of my life, when I get older I can see musicians coming to perform. And at the same time I think the people from my community, they deserve to have something back, because I went all over the world with their culture and talking about them, so they need to have something there where people will come to perform in front of them, and they will perform for these people and exchange ideas.

Also the festival is a platform for Africa 2015, because the first the year, the second day of the festival, all day we have all the journalists, all the professionals in education in a big room, more than 70 people, and we could talk about where are we when it comes to education in West Africa. Are all the girls still staying out of school?  Or are we losing the girls?  Or the boys?  Are they doing good?  Because most of them stop at some point and want to travel to go to Europe.  What has to be done?  So it’s not just music.  We see it in the night.  It’s also to talk about these issues.  It’s to go visit some traditional arts exhibitions that people do there and they never get the chance to show it to anyone.  So people can come to visit that. It’s a fashion show the first time.  It’s called Oumousi, very big designer from Senegal who go to Harlem, to Germany, to France, everywhere to do fashion shows, and she brought these fashion shows that she would have put on in London for example with all the mothers, all the things that she makes.  We took 2 hours to make a fashion show there in the north of Senegal, in a very beautiful tent.  It’s a kind of dream, and we put it on in a very professional way. Everything has to be perfect, the performing of the musicians.

And every year, the festival is dedicated to one country, because it’s called The Blues of the River. The River Senegal is shared by Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Guinea, and we are open to all those countries, others also, but these four are the main ones that do the festival—the people of my community in the North of Senegal, or the South in Mauratania, who do the opening ceremony themselves.  They show all the different parts of the culture, before the starting of the shows in the night.  The first year Mali was the guest of the festival.  We had Mah Kouyate, who came with a very big band.  The next year was Mauritania, then Senegal, and Guinea.  Last year it was Guinea with musicians like Binta Lali, and Petit Yoro, and many more musicians will be coming this year. So it’s in December—10, 11 and 12 of December.

B.E.:  Well one of these days Afropop will be there.  You can count on it.

B.M.:  Afropop is one of the people who really made me think of this.  You will be much happier to see it happening on the continent.

B.E.:  We will be there, that’s really good to know that this is still happening.  Finally, tell me just a little bit about the performance we’re going to see tomorrow. This is going to be something a little different at Joe’s Pub, “A Conversation with Baaba Maal.”

B.M.:  I’m here this time to talk about the album, to talk about Africa, to talk about the connection between the culture and the social issues, and the things that I really stand up for, and at the same time, I have my guitar and I have Barry Reynolds.

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