Mathieu Chedid, Toumani Diabate, Sidiki Diabate, Fatoumata Diawara
Matthieu Chedid (born 21 December 1971, in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France), better known by his stage name ‑M- , is a French rock singer-songwriter and guitar player. Matthieu Chedid is the son of French singer Louis Chedid, and the grandson of the Egyptian-born French writer and poet of Lebanese descent Andr ée Chedid who has written lyrics for him. His sister is the music video and concert director Émilie Chedid.
Chedid, a talented multi-instrumentalist, took an interest in music early on. In 1978, at the age of six, Chedid lent his voice to the chorus of his father's hit song T'as beau pas être beau alongside older sister, Émilie. During his teenage years and early twenties, Chedid formed a few short-lasting groups such as Mat Mat (Checkmate Checkmate), Les B éb és fous (The crazy babies) and Les Poissons rouges (The "red fish," a French expression equivalent to the English "goldfish") with Mathieu Boogaerts and with the sons of Laurent Voulzy and Alain Souchon, Julien Voulzy and Pierre Souchon. He has collaborated with a number of artists, both on stage and in the recording studio. Early into his solo career, Chedid was the opening act for Texas concerts. He has recorded with NTM, Sinclair, Billy Ze Kick, and more recently with Brigitte Fontaine, Sean Lennon, Vanessa Paradis, and Johnny Hallyday, with whom he recorded the come-back album Jamais Seul (2011).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthieu_Chedid
Toumani Diabat é is one of the most creatively prolific and successful musicians on the African continent, and was described by the Observer as 'one of the world's most pre-eminent musicians in any genre'. He plays the kora, a harp with 21 strings unique to West Africa. More than any other kora player, it's Toumani who is responsible for bringing this instrument to audiences around the world. He's a performer of truly exceptional virtuosity and creativity - someone who has shown that the kora can rival the world's greatest instruments.
Toumani was born in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in 1965 into a family of griots (hereditary musician/historian caste) whose lineage stretches back 71 generations, father to son. His father, Sidiki Diabat é (c. 1922-96), was a kora player of legendary fame in West Africa - dubbed King of the Kora – who became famous for his virtuoso “hot” and idiosyncratic style of playing, echoes of which can be heard in Toumani's style. Sidiki's first wife, Toumani's mother, was the singer Nene Koita.
Despite the musical environment in which Toumani was raised, he was self-taught, never learning directly from his father except by listening. He began playing the kora at the age of five at a time when the Malian Government was engaged in an active programme of encouraging regional ensembles to represent local traditions. Toumani was recruited to the ensemble from Koulikoro (some 60 kms east of Bamako) with whom he made his public debut at the age of 13 to great local acclaim. In 1984 Toumani joined the group of brilliant young musicians who accompanied the great diva Kandia Kouyate.
Toumani first came to the Europe in 1986 to accompany another Malian singer, Ousmane Sacko, and ended up staying in London for seven months. During this period, at the age of 21, he recorded his first solo album Kaira, the first ever solo kora album and still a best seller. In 1986 Toumani also made his first appearance at a WOMAD festival and made a significant impact.
In the UK, Toumani met and worked informally with musicians from many different fields of music. His first major recorded collaboration was with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama. The resulting album Songhai, with pieces like 'Jarabi', was a perfect synthesis of kora and flamenco.
In 1990 Toumani formed the Symmetric Orchestra, a name that evokes perfect balance or 'symmetry' between tradition and modernity and between the contributions of musicians from a number of closely related countries. Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali itself, were all part of the medieval Mand é Empire and Toumani had the idea of recreating its cultural equilibrium in a modern musical context.
The orchestra name was first used on CD for the elaborate projet Shake The Whole World released in 1992 in Japan and Mali only. Maintaining a weekly residence at the Hogon in Bamako throughout Toumani's career, the group continued to evolve and grow, culminating in the release of the acclaimed album Boulevard de l'Ind épendance in 2005, and the extensive international touring that followed.
In the early to mid 1990s, Toumani began to gather a number of exceptionally talented musicians around him, such as the brilliant Bassekou Kouyate on the ngoni, and Keletigui Diabat é on balafon. He cultivated a type of jazz-jugalbandi-griot instrumental ensemble which can be heard on his album Djelika, released in 1995. In the same year Toumani travelled to Madrid to record Songhai 2.
In 1998 Toumani recorded a kora duet album with Ballake Sissoko; their respective fathers released the 1970s classic Cordes Anciennes (Ancient Strings), so the new album was called New Ancient Strings. It was their tribute to the original record and an attempt at bringing such material to a modern audience.
They say that the blues comes from Africa, so it seemed entirely natural that Toumani should collaborate with the bluesman Taj Mahal. Their groundbreaking album Kulanjan was released in 1999. Constantly on look out for ways to evolve and innovate, Toumani's next album MALIcool was a collaboration with the American free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd that took another step out towards the edge. The arrangements are sparse, leaving everybody room to improvise, and there are a few unexpected pieces such as an interpretation of Thelonius Monk's 'Hank', a swinging version of a Welsh folk song, and a leftfield take on Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.
Toumani has participated in many other recording projects both at home and abroad: he appears on Ali Farka Tour é's eponymous debut album for World Circuit; he toured with Salif Keita and appears on his acclaimed albums Papa and Mbemba; he was part of Damon Albarn's Mali Music project; he's featured on Kasse Mady Diabat é's 2004 Grammy nominated album Kassi Kasse, and in 2007 he featured on the track 'Hope' on Bj örk's album Volta, which lead to an inspired guest appearance on her set at the Glastonbury Festival.
Toumani has enjoyed recognition for his contributions to the development of the kora and African music in general. In 2004 he received the Zyriab des Virtuoses, a UNESCO prize awarded at the Mawazine Festival in Morocco. He's President and Director of Mandinka Kora Productions, who actively promote the kora through workshops, festivals, and various cultural events. He's also a teacher of the kora and of modern and traditional music at the Balla Fasseke Conservatoire of Arts, Culture and Multimedia in Bamako.
In 2004, Toumani began working with World Circuit on a trilogy of albums recorded at sessions in the Mand é Hotel in Bamako. The first release was the duets album In the Heart of the Moon, recorded with the great Ali Farka Tour é, which won the Best Traditional World Music Album GRAMMY Award. Second in the trilogy was Boulevard de l'Ind épendance by Toumani Diabat é's Symmetric Orchestra. The third was Ali Farka's final solo album Savane. Toumani accompanied Ali on his last concert tour in the summer of 2005 during which they spent 3 days in a London studio recording Ali and Toumani, the follow up to In the Heart of the Moon, which also won a Grammy.
Taking time out from their weekly residency at Bamako's Hogon club (recently moved to Le Diplomat), Toumani Diabat é and his Symmetric Orchestra proved a revelation when they headlined venues such as New York's Carnegie Hall or festivals such as Glastonbury, Nice Jazz Festival, and Montreal Jazz Festival.
Toumani was also busy working on his next album The Mand é Variations, released in February 2008. It's an all-acoustic album, Toumani's first solo kora work since his groundbreaking debut album Kaira, released over twenty years before. Both the album and subsequent solo recitals were met with universal critical acclaim. Toumani performed a special concert with the London Symphony Orchestra and the year came to a climax with another GRAMMY Award nomination and an NAACP Image Award for The Mand é Variations. Toumani was appointed UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador in December 2008, using his music to spread awareness on HIV and AIDS.
2010 proved to be another prolific year for Toumani. The album Ali and Toumani was released at the start of the year to universal praise. Following its release, Toumani and his band played his interpretations of the music of Ali Farka Tour é in a series of special concerts appropriately called The Ali Farka Tour é Variations Tour, which included a special show in Paris with Ali's son Vieux stepping into his father's role for one night only.
That summer saw the premiere of AfroCubism, an all-star group featuring the finest musicians from Cuba and Mali, including Toumani. In 1996, a group of Mali's finest musicians were due to fly into Havana to collaborate with some of Cuba's most brilliant singers and instrumentalists. For reasons that have never been made clear, the Malians never arrived. A very different album was recorded: The Buena Vista Social Club. The rest, as they say, is multi-million selling history. World Circuit finally brought the original invitees together with a stellar line-up of additional talent at a series of inspirational sessions and the great lost Afro-Cuban album Afrocubism was released fourteen years after originally planned.
Toumani celebrated his second GRAMMY Award for Ali and Toumani in 2011. He also embarked on a new collaboration, this time with the Brazilian artists Arnaldo Antu ñes and Edgard Scandurra, resulting in the album A Curva a Cintura.
The crisis that hit Mali in March 2012 had a deep effect on Toumani. He learned about the military coup that toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure when he was on his way to Wales to collaborate with the harpist Catrin Finch. Nightlife in Bamako, and the livelihoods of many musicians were extinguished for a while. The Islamist take over of the northern two-thirds of the country and the banning of music there also provoked profound antipathy in Toumani, who is not only one of Mali's most famous musicians but also a devout Muslim.
In March 2014 SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) announced that Toumani Diabat é is to be awarded an Honorary degree of Doctor of Music (D.Mus) in recognition of his influential work in raising awareness of the kora and the traditional music of Mali around the world and his contribution to Mande scholarship, (which Mr Diabat é and his family have been involved with since the 1st Mande Studies Conference at SOAS in 1972). The only other musician to have received an Honary degree is the acclaimed pianist Daniel Barenboim, in 2008.
Mali's recent tragedy was one of the main impulses behind Toumani's decision to record an album of duets with his son, Sidiki Diabat é, a hugely talent kora player and a successful hip hop artist. He wanted to present the 72nd generation of Diabat é griots to the world, but also reaffirm his belief that Mali's most precious assets are its music and culture, its traditional faith and the bonds that bind its many different peoples.
Sidiki Diabat é born in Bamako, Mali in 1990, Sidiki Diabate is a kora-player and hip hop producer and the latest addition to the celebrated Diabate musical dynasty. He is the eldest son of the world's greatest kora player Toumani Diabat é, and the grandson of Sidiki Diabat é senior (1922-96) who was considered the greatest player of his generation. Like his father, and his grandfather before him Sidiki is a griot - a custodian of the ancient oral traditions of West Africa's Mand é people, which stretches back, father-to-son for over seven hundred years.
Sidiki was initiated into the world of the kora, the twenty-one stringed West African harp, when he was 10 years old. The story is told in 'Sidikiba's Kora Lesson' (Ryan Thomas Skinner, 2008), a popular coming-of-age children's book which is accompanied by an audio CD of his first recording. Since his initiation Sidiki has spent years of intense study of the kora and the culture which surrounds it.
Now twenty-three and a father himself, Sidiki is considered to be a musical genius, with formidable technique and a distinctive style. He personifies the kora's entry into the digital age; when he was a teenager he enrolled in the National Institute for the Arts in Bamako, taking up drums and learning digital recording techniques and in 2013 he was voted Mali's best beat-maker. As well as remaining true to the classical traditions of the kora, Sidiki sites contemporary western stars such as Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West as influences.
A few years ago Sidiki teamed up with rapper 'Iba One' to form a duo who have become leading lights in Mali's burgeoning rap scene. One of their biggest hits 'Hommage à Mohamed Cherif Madani Haidara', was a tribute to the son of a prominent religious leader who advocated tolerance. The duo also played a major role in the recording of 'On Veut La Paix' ('We Want Peace'), an all-star rap hymn to peace in Mali, which was released to great fanfare in 2012, when religious militants were attempting to outlaw music. The duo have performed to twenty thousand fans in Bamako's Modibo Keita stadium.
Sidiki's wish is to take his instrument, an emblem of seven hundred years of history, and make it an essential part of the changing environment around him. "You can't imagine a rap movement anywhere that has the power and force of rap here in Mali," says Toumani, his father. "Iba One and Sidiki Diabat é, they're the number one rappers in Mali. Their lyrics talk about the ills of our society, the problems. But at the same time their music is full of rhythm, in the true spirit of Malian music." Sidiki and his kora are at the forefront of a movement which is attempting to change political thinking in West Africa.
The recording of 'Toumani & Sidiki' (World Circuit, 2014) marks a poignant and significant moment in Sidiki's life. 'For me to play with my dad is like a dream. Yes I'm a hip-hop artist, but I love and respect my roots as a kora player, I want to know more. It's my chance to learn directly from my father. It's extra special because he is my idol'.
http://www.toumaniandsidiki.com/biography
In her teens,
Fatoumata Diawara moved to France to pursue an acting career. She appeared in a handful of films and worked with a street theater troupe but really found her calling later, when she took up the guitar and started writing songs. Born in Cote d’Ivoire and raised in southern Mali, Diawara grew up hearing Wassoulou music, a song style that’s thought by some ethnomusiclogists to be one of the main pre-colonial ancestors of blues. The Wassoulou cultural area is now split between three countries, but it has a history that extends back centuries, and Diawara merges that long, traditional history with a modern, globalized sensibility on her debut album.
Diawara has honed her performing and recording craft through work with AfroCubism, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, and Herbie Hancock, among others, so really the big step here is to recording her own songs with her own arrangements. She has a voice with a naturally sensual glide to it that sometimes reminds me a little of Sade. Unlike many of her peers, such as Oumou Sangar é, power is not really a part of her style– she keeps her singing even and steady to complement the hypnotic, cycling guitar parts of her arrangements. The album is quietly intense, rarely rising above the volume of ordinary conversation.
Diawara sings in her native Wassoulou language, but understanding the exact content of the songs isn’t necessary to enjoy them. There’s plenty of information in the melodies and rhythms, and inventive musicianship as well. Diawara locks in with the simmering funk backdrop of “Bissa” by playing harmonics on her guitar instead of full chords. The electric leads seem to float up out of the patterns; several times over the course of the album, I found myself caught up in a flowing solo that I didn’t even notice when it started. This is how the whole record works. There’s no fanfare, nothing is announced. It simply surrounds you with its atmosphere.
It is an ultimately beguiling album because of this. Even in its most demonstrative moments, such as the shivering lead guitar line that opens “Bakonoba”, it’s a record you can sink into and enjoy for its sonics as well as its songwriting. “Bakonoba” is among the songs with the strongest West African character, and that guitar is a big part of it– it’s reminiscent of the type of lead Malian guitarists Djelimady Tounkara or Kant é Manfila might have once laid down for the Rail Band. Otherwise, Diawara is one of a growing number of musicians working on a sort of pan-folk sound that incorporates influences from across a broad Afro-Western cultural spectrum. It’s an approach that may be a better fit for the “world music” label than any of the highly localized sounds that tag’s often applied to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatoumata_Diawara
