September 29, 2008

Big in Koutiala

As Amadou Bah, then 'chef d'orchestre' of Super Biton once told me, you can't expect to remain true to your culture if you go and live somewhere else. He was talking about Salif Keita... But by this standard Abdoulaye Diabaté is a shining example of an artist who has stuck by his roots. He still lives in Koutiala, which is somewhere between Ségou and Sikasso.

And although he moves with the times (i.e. records mainly in Europe), he still plays the Bambara rhythms of his native region.

This is a cassette from the 1980s, when he was still recording in Mali. The sound quality may be less than perfect, the music amply compensates this.

EDIT June 10, 2013: the link has been updated.

3 comments:

aduna said...

Superbe!!!!

I like it so much.

Thanks, again & again

Anonymous said...

Fantastic the Koutiala band, will not have the information of staff in the cassette?
In the cd Makan are three themes of the Koule-Star, but only include the musicians of the Paris recordings.

Thanks really a world service.

WrldServ said...

Sorry, there are no names on the cassette. But it's the same band as on the cassette starting with 'Bobereni'. Do you know that?

Nowadays, Abdoulaye plays with a lot of members of his own family.