PIRACY IN MALI
New channels of the evil

Piracy is a recurring phenomenon which is ruining all the musical industry of our country by condemning talents to idleness and social hassle. The threat is so real and worrying that it had caused a second walk (after that of February 2000) of the artists last June, on the occasion of the Festival of music. And yet, not long before, the Minister of the Culture had personally engaged to eradicate the plague before November 2004 or to resign in case of failure.

At a few weeks of this expiry, one notes bitterly that the evil is becoming more rooted in the cultural and commercial environment of Mali. Piracy has never been so flourishing in our country. And the business is so juicy that Bamako is becoming the turntable of the counterfeit of the artistic and cultural works of West Africa. From concordant sources, small clandestine units of duplication of cassettes, DVD and VCD are multiplying in the capital. They are equipped as well to reproduce the jackets.
Worse, profiting from the fact that small salesmen walk with impunity with paperboards full of pirated works, some found means of making fortune by creating "mobile units" of piracy. Indeed, many young people walk with apparatus installed in handcarts to copy cassettes in vogue at cheap prices. And everybody knows it. But, nobody, starting with the Malian Office of the royalties (BUMDA), protests by a rigorous repression.
This form of piracy is not, alas, the only concern of the artists and the promoters of musical and artistic industry. Nowadays, we (producer, artists, distributors…) assist, powerless, to the appearance of new channels. The Malian market is not flooded any more by pirated products coming from only Guinea - Conakry, Togo... But, it is also coveted by networks established in China and Arab Emirates. Today, they have advanced technology for the duplication of successful albums. And all that at low production cost. This will enable them to propose, approximately, tapes at less than 250 F CFA per unit.
These new channels are always controlled by the famous Kaluani. Installed in Dubai, this businessman is today at the head of a real empire of counterfeit. It’s from Dubai that he floods the African markets with products beating all competition. To be done, they profit from the complicity of certain economic operators of the country. Those should not be unknown from the BUMDA which delivers authorizations of importation to them. These wormy economic operators, of whom we voluntarily hush up the names for the needs for our investigation, do not hesitate to declare that they do not miss funds to corrupt the agents of the control line of imports (direction of competition, customs, BUMDA, etc).
The hitch is that at the time when these new channels want to conquer definitively a market already controlled at 90 % by the pirates, the agents of the BUMDA are giving a humiliating spectacle. They require the departure of their General Manager because this one refused to support some of their comrades taken the red handed for complicity in a business of piracy of the works of Salif Kéita. To submit to such blackmail would be the definitive burying of the Bumda because, in the future, the DG will always be obliged to submit to the requirements of his subordinates who, in the majority, are not a reference as regards of transparency, of competence, effectiveness and honesty.
We will never cease saying it, for effective fighting against piracy, the Minister of the Culture must take the responsibility to purge the BUMDA of its black sheep which want, that beats all, to pass for the scapegoats in the plundering of the talent of our artists. This service, more than ever, need new blood and qualified and just agents. And that must be regarded as an urgent measure to take, like a precondition. It is in any case, in our opinion, the indispensable condition if the Minister of Culture really wants to keep his word and win the bet of eradicate piracy.
King Moseto

Rokia assaults America
The nightingale of Beledougou, Rokia Traoré, has just taken again her stick of pilgrim to continue her conquering walk towards the top of the international show biz. Indeed since the beginning of this month, she undertook an American tour for about fifteen spectacles in Jamaica, Canada and United States. Accompanied by her musicians who joined her in France only a few days ago, the fine Rose of the Malian music will perform in cities like Kingston (Jamaica), Chicago, New York, Seattle, Minneapolis, with the festival of San Francisco, the festival of Jazz of Los Angeles (The United States), Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver (Canada). This tour, which will end around October 25, will undoubtedly definitively allow Rokia Traoré to conquer the American public.

Adama Yalomba Womex
Adama Yalomba and his musicians will leave today for France where they must animate two concerts in Aubervilliers within the framework of a festival called " Ville des Musiques du Monde " on next October 26 and 27. The child of Ké-Macina will then perform in Germany within the framework of the biggest International exhibition of disc: the Womex.

Kandia Kouyaté feels better
The Malian STATE through the department of culture is at the Diva Kandia Kouyaté’s bedside who’s hospitalized in Rabat (Morocco).