Malian musicians back power of harmony over guns
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) – As musicians from Mali took to a London stage on Saturday night, news was announced that back home French troops had captured the airport of the Islamist-controlled city of Gao.
A cheer went up – and not surprisingly.
Since Islamist militants seized control of Mali’s north following a military coup in March 2012, the country has been convulsed by conflict.
Its musical community, whose singers and players have won worldwide acclaim, has been targeted by the hardline Islamists bent on imposing sharia, or Islamic law. Concerts have been banned in northern cities, clubs closed, instruments smashed and burned, musicians harassed and forced to flee.
This weekend’s “Sahara Soul” concert at London’s Barbican, featuring Bassekou Kouyate, Sidi Toure and the desert blues band Tamkirest, showcased the country’s musical riches and called for peace. But it also indicated that there were differing visions of what any peace might entail.
“There is just one message – peace,” Sidi Toure told Reuters backstage before the concert. “If you filled this room with gold and diamonds, it would not be more important than peace.”
Toure hails from Gao on the banks of the River Niger in the Sahel region and performs Songhai folk songs with a trance-like beat. Music, he said, was ingrained in Malian life.
“When you feel bad, only music can cure you. We have many different kinds – for your first child, for weddings, for parties.”
But it has been forbidden in Gao since an official of the Ansar Din (Followers of God) militant group stated in August: “We do not want Satan’s music.”
“At the cultural centre, they made a fire in the street of all the instruments. Now all the musicians have left, for Bamako, for Niger, for Burkina Faso,” Toure said.
Malians welcomed the French military action three weeks ago as Islamist forces advanced on the capital Bamako, he said.
“Without the French intervention, that would have been the end of Mali. The French saved Mali,” he said.
WELLSPRING OF THE BLUES
Until the war pushed Mali to the forefront of U.S. and European security concerns with fears the Islamists would turn the country into a base for international attacks, Mali was probably best defined for the outside world by its music.
It is seen as the wellspring of American blues, transported to Mississippi and Memphis by slavery.
Artists such as Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple from Bamako, have sold millions of records and fill concert halls worldwide. The desert blues band Tinariwen, born out of the Touareg rebellion, won a
Article source: PRNewswire
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