MORY KANTE
Return to the acoustic source

After Tamala (Traveller) in 2002, which distribution in Mali is ensured by Mali K7, Mory Kanté is back with another acoustic album: Sabou! Expression of only traditional instruments, this opus allows the artist to definitively get rid of the label "griot rock'n'roll" that people stick to him. The critics then speak of a "second life". It is true that Mory Kanté is back from far after the success of Yéké Yéké in the Eighties.
Sabou! Cause, source or reason? It’s in any case the title of Mory Kanté’s new album. Distinguishing mark: it’s an opus entirely made of traditional instruments. It is thus more acoustic than Tamala, the precedent, first steps towards the traditional sources of his art. "Sabou comes to recall that even if I was nicknamed" griot rock'n'roll ", I can return to a form closer to the tradition. Moreover, I had already proven it when, in 1991, that means four years after Yéké Yéké, I had presented for the inauguration of the Great Arch of Defence in Paris a symphonic project joining together 130 traditional griots musicians and vocalists?", he indicates on RFI.
The will to emphasize the immense potentialities of the African music is showed. "I wanted to invent from the African traditional music, something new but comprehensible by everyone. Sometimes, when we listen to this album, we have the feeling to hear keyboard, whereas there is not. The amalgam of all the traditional instruments gives this impression. It is like a painter who, not having green on his pallet would mix yellow and blue to obtain green ", comments the artist.
Will of promotion, but also search of rebirth on the international scene. Because the player of Kora had fallen into a great anonymity after having hoisted and maintained a long time at the top of the hits parades with Yéké Yéké in the Eighties and Nineties. A test that he overcame with a great wisdom. "On the professional level, there can be tops and bottoms. But, bottom must be very instructive, help to find a force. In any case, it is already not easy to survive the madness of a planetary success, to keep a cold head. It is very necessary to be solid. Also, when the excitation around you is calmed, it is not good to be discouraged. I was even happy, in peace ", estimates the ex-member of the Band Rail of Bamako.
What is easily understood because "the griots are mentally formed to live anything, to face anything. As we use to say by us: the solution is older than the problem ".
For Mory Kanté, "there is a life after Yéké Yéké. Even if it remains my fetish title, moreover Leonardo di Caprio used a remix for the original band of the film The Beach in 2000. Presently, I have nothing to do with this title. I can give a concert without even playing it. I did not make only that and Yéké Yéké doesn’t illustrate only one of the aspects of my step which is to valorise the traditional instruments ".
This electric option came especially from the will of the artist to emphasize his instrument: the Kora. "That one appreciates or not the artistic direction that I had taken, it should be well admitted that many people, everywhere, then discovered the Kora (the harp lute with 21 cords), instrument of the griots, Masters of the word and the memory in West Africa. My entire step, since the beginning, was to tend towards an inter-cultural communication and to place the African instruments in the tree of the universal music ".
A well accomplished mission nowadays, thanks to the success of the Mandingo griot, everyone knows the balaphon or the Kora and they are sometimes integrated in groups practising music of fusion. "Today the African traditional music is recognized and appreciated in the world, then for me, the goal is reached", he said. In any case after Tamala (Traveller), the famous griot follows his journey towards the pure sources of the musical tradition of Mande with Sabou which will soon be distributed in Mali by Mali K7. He’s still surprising his fans.
King Moseto

Amadou Guitteye called You
You is back to us with a new album "Taama", an auto-production which will be distributed by Malik7 SA Ali Farka Touré associated.
Born at the eve of the African independences in Mopti, the Malian Venice, of a fine corpulence, a face hidden under a false look of Rasta because of his locks impeccably maintained, the artist is able to change his voice to imitate groups of Hard rock of the Seventies like Deep Purple, Led Zepplin, hence his nickname You.
It is at the age of 14 years old that the young Amadou Guitteye took his first steps in music, in Mopti, his birthplace by the sides of Koko Dembélé alias Hugues Aufrey, highly skilled soloist of the Kanaga of Mopti and who has today a solo career full of promise. His will to fight, his determination, his passion for music and especially the capital of experiment accumulated with the Kanaga of Mopti encouraged the young artist to settle in Bamako, ideal frame for the blossoming of the talents and the blooming of an artist. Always in the constant search of new sonorities and perfection, You undertook to attend the group Bama Sheba.
In 2000, he produces his first album entitled Mopti. Proud of the success met by the album Mopti, Amadou Guitteye You produces a second album "Taama" recorded between Germany and Mali "Taama addresses itself to all the adventurers like me, it is also my small contribution to the development. I left from Mopti for Bamako, Bamako for Paris and Paris for Cologne. I measure the way I travelled in my life of nomads…". Yes, the artist knows what he speaks about since despite the success met by the 1st album, he gradually dissociates from this style more adapted to the European standards. Taama draws its inspiration from the Malian music enriched to the contact with other sonorities. A Takamba or Fulani rhythm with a pinch of rhythms of elsewhere accompanied by a multiracial group composed of blacks (Malians and Senegalese), of white (German and American) and Indians (Chilean). The harmony is perfect and allows "Taama" to occupy the top of the hits. To wish you a happy feast of Ramadan "Taama" will be available on November 18, 2004.