01. Tamala
02. Atahar
03. Sambalama
04. Instrumental
05. Kola Cissé
06. Adounya
07. Fondo
08. Sambamila
09. Terey Kongo

 

The legendary Malian singer/guitarist returns with his most personal and immersive album to date. Intimately recorded with a small band, “Binga” dives deep into Samba’s Songhoy roots.  

Moody Sahelian atmospheres. Cautionary tales. Hopes for better days. 

During the 15^th and 16^th centuries the Songhoy people ruled the largest empire in Africa. It stretched across the entire western Sahel, famed for the glory that was Timbuktu. People called it the city of gold, known across the world as a centre of culture and learning.

But there’s another place that lies a little under a hundred kilometres south of that history, one whose name few people know. Binga is the region that encompasses the vast space below the Saharan desert in Mali. This is where guitarist and singer Samba Touré grew up, and it still owns his heart – Binga is the title of his fourth Glitterbeat album.

“I never left Binga,” he explains. “I went to [the Malian capital] Bamako in my youth to find some work and help my family. Even if it’s complicated or dangerous to travel to the north now, it’s still my homeland and always will be. I have a house there. It’s my culture and my heritage. This is my region and it felt right to name this album after it. It’s pure Songhoy music.”

With Binga, Touré has made sure those roots show proud and strong.

“I wanted to put them in the forefront, to go back to something more natural and closer to the band on stage, to show how we really are. It was important to me. This isn’t an influence, it’s my natural style.”

With his bass player having moved to the US, it was a stripped-down combo of guitar, ngoni, calabash and other percussion that entered the studio to record Binga. The result captures the lean tautness of the sound. The only addition on a few tracks was harmonica, but that wasn’t “so far from the traditional fiddle sound we used to have on some albums, it accompanies the music in the very same way.”

That paring-back to the bare bones gave the musicians space to create what Touré calls “a communion between the instruments.” As always, the groove is the foundation, the circling, mesmerising riffs of Touré’s guitar and the heartbeat rhythm of the calabash. It’s relentless, mesmerising, and the voice and the commentary of the ngoni revolve around it. This is music without embellishment, the very essence of Songhoy.

“Our music naturally has very few solos,” Touré explains. “I think they’re a very western thing. I’ve never played very long ones and I feel more like a creator of songs than a guitarist singer. The ngoni is also reserved here, compared to previous albums. Each one accompanies the others, simply.”

The result is stark, graceful, even austere at times. But that only emphasises its power. Instru-mental flourishes appear, but they’re only brief, sharp flashes, like the conversation between guitar and ngoni at the end of “Sambalama.”  The focus is kept squarely on the power of the songs – all sung in Sonhgoy, unlike previous albums.

Touré has never shied away from describing the realities of life in his homeland. Mali, he says, has gone from “one coup d’état to another, from one rebellion to another, from one inter-ethnic massacre to another, nothing has changed, and I would even say that everything has worsened in recent years. Then the health and school systems are very, very behind, nothing is being done…” The darkness swirls, impossible to ignore. He’s written about the situation before, on Albala and Gandadiko, but little has changed.

““Sambamila” has this kind of mood, because I feel so sad that I’m still not able to go to my village in full security. And “Fondo” covers something I sing about in all my albums, the immigration of the youth for what they think to be a better life, whether it’s to another country, or simply to the capital. In “Atahar,” I sing about the malfunctioning of the Malian school system, which between repeated strikes and closures due to COVID is in a lamentable state. I didn’t have a chance to go to school as a child and it makes me sad that today, 40 years later, the Malian authorities still neglect our children, our only wealth and hope for the future.”

Touré’s words are as lean and muscular as his music on Binga. There’s the force of the heart behind them. A communion, not just of instruments, but also voices, the power of the Songhoy soul. When he looks at the area where he grew up, he doesn’t see anything bucolic, only a vision of the poverty that remains.

“In many villages they still live like in the old days, sometimes walking kilometres to get a single bucket of water, there are a lot living without electricity,” he points out. “I don’t wish them a simpler life, but on the contrary, more development and future prospects for their children.”

Yet the album is far from shadowed and sorrowful. “Sambalama” is a joyful statement of standing tall and hoping for better days to come while on “Kola Cissé” Touré offers a praise song the memory of the late head of the Malian Football Federation. Two old Songhoy pieces bookend the disc, “Tamala” and “Terey Kongo,” and both are filled with light, celebrating the history of the Songhoy people.

Binga is the music of a realist. It’s a cry from the soul, but even more, an affirmation of a nation’s history, and Samba Touré’s pride in it. For him, it could never be anything else.

“I never left my roots. How could I even do that? I’m a Songhoy man and a Malian citizen first. I deeply love my country and its culture; they are all the parts of who I am.”

 

01. Yo Pouhala / Blah Blah Blah 5:10
02. Hawah 5:00
03. Yerfara / We Are Tired 4:45
04. Goy Boyro / The Good Work (Well Done) 4:51
05. Wande / The Beloved 5:39
06. Irganda / It Is Our Land 4:31
07. Mana Yero Koy / Where To Go? 4:26
08. Hayame / Be Careful! 4:50
09. Tribute to Zoumana Tereta 4:30

 

Sometimes the unexpected happens and it becomes a gift. Serendipity, good fortune. Think of it as life handing you what you need, not what you thought you wanted. When Malian singer and guitarist Samba Touré was planning Wande (The Beloved), his third Glitterbeat release, he had strong ideas for the way it should sound. But once the sessions were over, he knew he had something entirely different, something even more satisfying: a collection of songs where warmth filled the grooves of every song. An album that seemed like home.

“We had a totally different album in mind,” Touré admits, “a return to something more traditional, almost acoustic. I think this album is less dark than the previous ones. It has some sad and serious songs, but it sounds more peaceful. All the first takes have been kept, I didn’t re-record any guitar lines, the first takes are the one you can hear on the album. There are less overdubs than in previous albums, we didn’t try to polish or make anything perfect, it gives a more natural feeling.”

That spark of spontaneity fires across the whole disc. It was recorded quickly, in “about 2 weeks, only in the afternoons and with breaks on week end to play in weddings, so it was very relaxed! One of the main difficulties we have in Mali is to reunite everyone at same moment. Every young musician plays in at least three bands or have a side job, only a few musicians in Mali can live from music, and have to work, so they are always busy. For the most part, I recorded the guitars first, then came percussion and bass. But on “Hawah,” a song I played before, I was totally unable to play the guitar without singing it so I just decided to record guitar and vocal together.”

The sense of change, of something different and fresh pervades every note of music. Wande is just as direct and powerful as Touré’s previous work, but everything moves with a bright, danceable sensibility. Gone are the intense guitar and ngoni duels, replaced with with short, incisive guitar solos and a solid, laid-back groove. Only two songs had been written before going into the studio: the title cut, which is a love song to his wife, and “Tribute to Zoumana Tereta,” a memorial to the late sokou fiddle player who often collaborated with Touré, and who lives on in a sample that weaves throughout the track. Everything else came together almost on the spot, like the rhythmic “Yo Pouhala”, composed one afternoon and recorded the next, or “Yerfara”, with an impeccable, chunky rhythm guitar riff to make Keith Richards weep with envy.

The emphasis throughout is on rhythm, and the tama talking drum that’s always been a feature of Touré’s music takes a place near the front of the band.

“I’ve always loved tama, for its sounds, it’s the only drum that can play eight notes. It’s so energetic. And I love tama for its symbol, its tradition. Before cellphones, when something important happened in a village, people would reunite on a place by the call of tama player. It’s a symbol of call to reunion.”

Wande is a record that reconciles continuity and change. But both have been the hallmarks of Touré’s career. Starting out as a guitarist in a soukous band, everything was altered when he became an accompanist to Mali’s greatest legend, the late Ali Farka Touré (with whom his mother had performed). Later, as a solo artist, he’s become renowned across the globe for his passionate guitar work and fiery singing, one of the masters of his art, a man who’s learned from the greatest and gone on to develop a sound that’s completely his own. But, Touré says, don’t call it desert blues. Don’t call it African Rock. That’s lazy. It doesn’t need labels like that.

“It’s contemporary music from Mali,” he insists. “Maybe our traditional music has changed. We live all in the same world wherever we are on that planet, we all have the same music on radio or TV, we hear the same music in movies, so even if we don’t really know what’s rock music in Mali, we hear some everywhere every day, it has become part of our inspirations, easy inspirations because it’s sometimes so close to what we do traditionally. If you attend a traditional ceremonies in villages north of Mali, you’ll see that musician always use distortion at maximum level but they don’t know anything about rock or blues. But believe me they do some. And desert blues…to me it’s a way to name music from the region north Mali, Niger or Mauritania but it has no more sense.”

Instead, call Wande the unexpected. Call it joyous. Call it the music Samba Touré is making right now.

01. Gandadiko
02. Wo Yende Alakar
03. Male Bano
04. Farikoyo
05. Touri Idjé Bibi
06. Chiri Hari
07. Gafoure
08. Su Wililé
09. I Kana Korte
10. Woyé Katé

 

Samba Toure’s previous album Albala was recorded during the fear-laden atmosphere of 2012, when northern Mali (including his ancestral village of Diré) had succumbed to sharia law and radical Islamist control and Bamako, his adopted home, still reeled in the chaos of the recent military coup.

Albala received widespread acclaim and was rightfully recognized not only as the best album of Samba’s career but also as an undeniable musical statement about the human toll of war and political crisis. Samba had spent years honing his artistry (including stints playing with Malian blues master Ali Farka Touré and Kora genius Toumani Diabate) and Albala signposted a mature artist, full of sonic imagination and narrative fire.

Gandadiko, the title of Samba’s potent, diverse and ambitious new album, translates from his native language Songhai as: “Land of Drought” or “Burning Land.” The title seems to indicate a return to the dark textures that marked Albala but in fact Gandadiko is a more complex story than that.

Philippe Sanmiguel, a record producer living in Bamako (Anansy Cissé, Mariam Koné)and Samba’s producer for both albums, provides the details:

“One thing I’m sure of is that we didn’t want to do a second ‘Albala’. For Samba that album was maybe a little too sad and he wanted something closer to who he really is: hopeful. So the challenge was to have something as strong as ‘Albala’, but with more variety in the rhythms and moods and colors. I think the album sounds musically less dark, it’s more danceable and up-tempo, but, sorry Samba, it’s not entirely a joyful album. Tension, troubles and danger are still there in many of the songs.

The drought in the north caused many economic problems and worsened the security situation. TV and Internet news often talk about wars, but all the human distress and consequences that ensue from it are rarely fully told. Since the crisis started, we saw many people losing all they had, jobs, herds in the north, friends, hope… a cow which was sold for 400,000 cfa (600€) less than 2 years ago is now sold at 40,000 cfa (60€), because they are so thin and weak. That is what the opening title track ‘Gandadiko’ is about.

 

Our tearsare not enough
tomakethe land fertile.
Animals die one after the other,
the ground becomes dry,
There is nothing more to eat for the herds,
Cows are only skin and bones.

–Gandadiko (Fireland)

 

Samba is a very good father for his kids and teaches them positive things, but he can’t teach the whole country except via songs that warn about certain issues. ‘Su Wililé(The Living Dead)’is a song about an old friend of Samba’s that I have never seen sober. This song is a warning song to the youth.
Nowadays in Mali, some Hip Hop artists celebrate beer and weed too easily without any sense of responsibility in front of their young audience. The song is a reaction against this.

When I see my childhood friend
Who looks twice my age
And who just can’t remember me.

When I see these living dead
I say thanks that the alcohol
Has never crossed my path.

— Su Wililé (The Living Deads)

 

A strange anecdote about ‘Su Wililé’: The day it was recorded was the same day I asked Samba to record the Djinn (a traditional evil spirit) song on the new album, called ‘Gafouré.’ Samba likes to play that song but he never thought to record it. He agreed to do it but said to me: ‘one day you’ll cause problems for me with this music, Holley (Djinn music) is really dangerous.’ That same night, Samba’s alcoholic friend, the one he sings about in ‘Su Wililé’, died. He was headed that direction for sure but Samba really thinks recording ‘Gafouré’ contributed to his death!”

The musical moods and textures found on Gandadiko often play against the moralistic, reflective and at times anguished tenor of the lyrics. For example, Touri Idjé Bibi (Black Fruits) breezes along with a straight-ahead, infectious dance groove, punctuated by soaring backing vocals. The hopeful sound that Samba had originally sought seems to have been found. But the final lines of the song are pointed and cautionary:

 

Oh earth, forgiveness, oh river forgiveness,
Everyday we offend you.

 

Touré is known to search for the seeds of his musical ideas in the assorted stack of CDs he listens to while driving through the chaotic streets of Bamako. The out-of-the-box musical inspirations he has picked up for his new album range from Serge Gainsbourg (Wo Yende Alakar) to Bo Diddley via Tom Petty (Su Wililé ) to funky psychedelia (I Kana Korto), though of course all the raw material is instinctually filtered through the traditional melodies and rhythms of his Songhai musical heritage.

The songs on Gandadiko are in fact framed by a restless eclecticism.

Samba’s guitar playing has never been so anxious, exploratory and rock and roll and his voice has never been as smooth and relaxed. Samba wants to be many places at once and the accomplishment of Gandadiko is that by successfully navigating these sorts of “contradictions,” Samba’s artistry has reached an even higher level.

But whatever sonic triumphs Gandadiko has, the key to Samba’s music is always found in the heart. The final song Woyé Katé, beautifully sung together with his good friend Ahmed Ag Kaedi (from the Tuareg band Amanar), is a timeless plea for pan-ethnic understanding and a world where possibility trumps destruction. Such a song would have been much harder to sing two years ago, when war and crisis and division were the watchwords. But here Samba and Ahmed have seized the current moment of fragile calm and have used their resplendent voices and guitars to call for unity.

Music simply can’t do much more than that.

 

You have to come back to your houses now
We shall reconstruct, all together
We shall reconstruct houses,
We shall reconstruct the country
And we won’t let anyone speak for us again.

— Woyé Katé (Come Back Home)

 

Samba Touré: guitars, vocals
Djimé Sissoko: ngonis, percussion
Adama Sidibé: njurkel (monochord), njarka (sokou)
Baba Arby: bass
Madou Sidibé: acoustic bass
Kalifa Koné: calabash, djembé
Alassane Samaké: shaker, calabash & tambourine
Kalifa Koné: calabash & shaker
Ibrahima Séré: calabash
Adama Diawara: shaker
Sidi Maïga: doun-doun
Ahmed Ag Kaedi: guitar and vocal
Mariam Traoré: backing vocals

01. Be Ki Don
02. Fondora
03. Ayé Go Mila
04. Awn Bé Ye Kelenye
05. Aye Sira Bila
06. Albala
07. Ago Djamba
08. Al Barka
09. Idjé Lalo
10. Bana

 

When you meet Samba Touré in person, he comes off as a soft-spoken man, a man who easily charms you with his abundant smile and optimistic gait. But on his third album, Albala, which in the Songhai language means “danger” or “risk”, a weighted and at times defiant side of his personality emerges. To call Albala his darkest album is an understatement, but it is not a self-absorbed darkness. The cause of Touré’s worry is the crashing world around him, and more specifically the troubles echoing out from his beloved northern Mali homeland.

The last year has brought cataclysmic change and upheaval to northern Mali. The tragic details of this have been globally reported, so there is little point in sensationalizing them here. But the cumulative effect of these events on Samba’s music seems palpable. There is an added gravity to his voice and his words, an additional sting to his electric guitar; there are sharper edges and more complex undertones in his musical arrangements.

On “Fondora (Leave Our Road)” Samba sings with indignation:
I say, leave our road/ All killers leave our road/ Thieves leave our road
Looters, leave our road/ Rapists, leave our road/ Betrayers, leave our road

And on the haunting “Ago Djamba (Life Betrays Us)” Touré warns: We do not all have the same opportunities/ Here, nobody is born rich but we all have the same value/ Life betrays us.

As a band member, and valued collaborator of the late Malian legend Ali Farka Touré, Samba established a significant reputation, and through his first two solo albums Songhai Blues and Crocodile Blues (World Music Network) his confidence and musical prowess grew proportionately.

But Albala is a new flash point. There is more power, there is more grit, the mood is deeper, and aptly, given the album’s title, Touré takes more musical risks.

Recorded at Studio Mali in Bamako, in the autumn of 2012, Samba is joined by his regular band members Djimé Sissoko (n’goni ) and Madou Sanogo (congas, djembe) and guests such as the legendary, master of the soku (a one-stringed violin) Zoumana Tereta and the fast-rising Malian neo-traditional singer Aminata Wassidje Traore. Additionally, Hugo Race (The Bad Seeds, Dirtmusic, Fatalists) contributes an array of subtle atmospherics on guitar and keyboards.

On the opening song, “Be Ki Don”,Samba sings: “Everybody welcomes Samba Touré.”
With an album as soulful and captivating as Albala, that might not be an over-statement.