In this, the opening passage from my book Blick Bassy – 1958, I imagine the nocturnal reveries of Ruben Um Nyobè, the revolutionary leader of pre-independence Cameroun who was gunned down by the French army in September 1958
With the world’s media riveted to events in Washington, the West African nation of Mali might be forgiven for feeling a little abandoned in one of its darkest hours since independence. Last Tuesday January 17th at 9am a young jihadist by the name of Abdel Hadi al Foulani drove a pickup truck into a military…
Simonobisick is a character from Blick Bassy’s novel ‘Le Moabi Cinema.’ This letter from the novel, which Simonobisick writes to his mum, reads like a statement of Africa’s frustrated youth.
If the master plan succeeds, Mbongwana Star could become the Trojan Horse that penetrates the bastion of the world’s indifference (and revulsion and paranoia) and lifts the curse to bring that creative power out of rue Kato, the Beaux Arts, and other parts of Kinshasa. “The Beaux Arts is like a town within a town,” says Renaud. “Mbongwana Star has started rehearsing there and there’s a correlation with visual artists, stylists, people working on logos etc. It’s this kind of electric movement, this new vibe in Kinshasa that we’re trying to mix in with the music and the image.”
My 2014 photoshoot of Songhoy Blues in the Laffiabougou district of the Malian capital, Bamako, which yielding the cover shot of their hit debut ‘Music in Exile’.
All the musicians I spoke to agreed; Mali without music would be like Egypt without cotton, a bird without wings, a man without a soul.
Here’s a selection from a series of photo sessions I did in 2013 of Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita live in concert in Nottingham, Cardiff and Cardigan.
What’s more extraordinary however is Bombino’s fame at home. He’s become a bona fide head-turning airtime-hogging star in his own country, not just amongst the Touareg, who mainly live in Niger’s northern deserts, but amongst the youth of the entire nation. That’s something that no other Touareg artists has ever managed to do, not even Tinariwen.
If the musicians in the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste are masters of individual survival, the orchestra itself is an epic example of debrouillardise, of thinking the impossible and then just doing it.
Garba Touré and his guitar were a familiar sight on the streets of Diré, a dusty town on the banks on the Niger River, upstream from Timbuktu. But when armed jihadists took control of northern Mali in the spring of 2012, he knew it was time to leave.
