Introduction

Watch the music video for the song “Gorel” by the Senegalese artist Baaba Mal.

Identify the musical elements that you read about in Chapter 7: “Music of West Africa “ as being common in West African music: patterns, call and response, and rhythmic focus. What do you hear that sounds more familiar this time you listen to it than when you first heard it in the previous chapter? This song is performed by guitarist and singer, Baaba Maal and his band, Daande Lenol (Voice of the People), superstars of Senegal.

Senegal, the country on the western most tip of Africa , is a crossroads for many parts of the continent, and as a result, has one of the most well-known and vibrant musical cultures in Africa. Senegal’s population of 15.7 million includes six major ethnic groups, the largest of which are Wolof (37%) and Pulaar/Fulani (26%). While the official language is French, numerous other ethnic languages are commonly spoken. Over 94% of the people are  Muslim and live in large extended families.^[1]  It is a country of youth with currently 60% of the population under the age of 25. Only half of the population is literate, however. Senegal’s economy is driven by mining, construction, tourism, fisheries and agriculture, which are the primary sources of employment in rural areas. Its largest exports are peanuts and fish.

After a lengthy colonization by numerous European countries, most notably the French, Senegal became an independent country in 1960. The independence brought a cultural revolution to Senegal with a blossoming of radio stations and nightclubs, both of which played Western music. In the 1970s, Cuban musicians began touring Senegal as part of Fidel Castro’s cultural and political initiative in Africa. The strong influence of Cuban music in the dance rhythms and guitar parts laid the foundation for new music.

Contemporary Senegalese music draws on several styles of traditional music, including classic West African drumming styles and the kora, 21-string harp (see below), the native sabar drum and dance tradition [Note: the word sabar can be used to describe both the dance style and the drums themselves. (see below)], as well as vocal stylings related to the Sufi Muslim chanting of the Qur’an. Elements of these styles have been fused with popular American and Cuban music to create several uniquely Senegalese popular music styles, most notably mbalax, one of the most popular styles of music there today. To get a feel for mbalax, listen again to “Gorel” (the song posted above) by Baaba Maal, featuring Massamba Diop on the tama or talking drum.

To learn more about the tama,  watch the  two-minute demonstration in this Wolof Talking Drum documentary. Notice particularly how the pitch changes while the artist plays.

In order to fully understand mbalax, we must understand the traditional roots of the music, including the music of the griots and the sabar tradition.

Traditional Music of the Griots

This video of an excerpt of the Epic “Kelefa Ba” is performed by the griot family of Malamini Jobarteh from Brikama in The Republic of Gambia.   Gambia is a separate country inside of Senegal; music of Gambia shares many of the same traits as Senegalese music.   The father, Malimini is accompanied by his two sons, Baiye and Pa Bobo on kora and djembe respectively, with his wife on bell and vocals.

An epic is a long poem that tells stories about cultural heroes. Griots like Malimini and his songs learn many full length epics in their entirety. Since many of these epics would take many hours to tell completely, griots often will perform portions of these. Because one of the roles of the griot is advisor (see below for a complete discussion of the griot), sometimes the selection contains pieces of the advice members of the audience might need to hear.

“Kelefa Ba”, like many epics of the griots, recounts the history of a famous warrior. In this small section of this tale, warrior prince, Kelefa Saane, travels to war in the south in the neighboring Guinea Bissau in order to prove himself in battle. However, no one wanted to fight him because a marabout (spiritual mystic) predicted he would die in battle and no one wanted to have Kelefa’s death on their hands. Kelefa survived the battle only to be killed by an arrow from someone hiding in a tree as Kelefa rested on his horse below.

Although not all professional entertainers in Senegal are griots, the majority are. One must be born a griot. Griots tend to live in extended families. The family elders train the children in the family arts. Because griots are rarely formally schooled beyond primary grades, musical training for older students is normally an all-day affair, every day. Men and women have very different roles in the griot tradition: men play instruments and are the featured performers. Women sing and dance as accompaniment to the men. While men sometimes perform alone or with other men, women always perform with men. Although in some exceptional cases a few male griots are willing to teach their instruments to women, most of the time gender impacts access to instrumental training as well as performance.

Griots are more than musicians and their performance involves more than singing and dancing. Griots are historians in cultures that revere history. They learn many historical epics like “Kelefa ba” (discussed above) and long genealogies of important cultural, historical, and political figures. These stories and genealogies are always sung to the accompaniment of their instruments, with women dancing and singing responses. Griots use the lessons in these histories and their intimate knowledge of the important people to serve not only as genealogists and historians, but also as diplomats, advisors, and teachers. Another term used to discuss a griot is “praise singer” and they are well trained not only in music, genealogy and history, but also flattery and satire to help engage their audiences. The stories they tell always include contemporary commentary.

Griots traditionally perform all manner of public and private functions, from family ceremonies to community festivals, and political events in small villages and big cities. Venues include small, intimate indoor settings, community halls, and large concert halls, outdoor festivals and arenas, as well as radio and television. More recently, as World Music has become an increasingly popular musical category, griots play also in tourist venues in Africa and World Music festivals abroad.

Griots always strive to engage the audience: engaging the audience is the fundamental reason the griot makes music: the “why.” They tell stories from the past in order to impact the future. They praise and critique leaders with tales of their illustrious genealogies and satirical quips about Modern life, to engage them and move them to action. They use musical engagement to build community and create civic engagement. Audience engagement is essential. In local or intimate settings, griots know the individuals for whom they perform, and they tailor their performance for these people, singing the praises of the most notable and telling the parts of the histories that they feel the leaders most need to hear.

Because the texts are situational (they depend on the particular gathering and who is present for the content) the melodies include much that is improvised. Even if the song is a very well-known traditional song, such as “Kelefa Ba,” there will be sections where the griot departs from the known song to speak of other things. In the case of the performance we hear in the YouTube video, the improvised text portions are English-language explanations of griot culture. In local performances, such as one at a wedding or political rally, the griot would sing the praise of the most important people in attendance, including relevant genealogies, histories, and anecdotes to engage the audience present in the appropriate musical and civic actions. The musical structure that facilitates this includes a flexible pattern-based accompaniment with melodic and rhythmic flourishes to serve as punctuation for the text. Cyclical structures based on short patterns are perfect for this because they can be played as few or as many times as necessary to accompany the length of the improvised sections.

Traditional griot performance is more of an exchange between griot and audience than a concert spotlighting an artist. Audiences request specific songs, and performers sing praise songs about specific audience members. Audience participation takes many forms, from clapping and dancing to tipping the musicians. Just as audiences of classical music in Europe grow up learning to sit quietly to listen, a griot’s traditional audience of local community members grow up learning how and why to engage with the musicians.

As griots increasingly play for cultural outsiders in tourist venues and world music festivals abroad, the reason for the engagement necessarily needs to shift. When playing for Senegalese audience members, griots encourage civic engagement. When playing for non-Senegalese audiences, they encourage cultural engagement. Rather than engaging in the traditional exchange of praise singing and history with civic activism and monetary tips, the griots become cultural educators teaching outsiders about West African music and culture.

This video of “Kelefa Ba” is a good case in point. It is outdoors and most likely within the griots’ compound, so it is an intimate setting with no audience visible with the musicians. Rather, the audience is remote and watching on YouTube. Rather than engaging a local audience to musical participation and civic engagement, the griot, Malamini, is engaging the viewer in cultural engagement. This is illustrated most keenly when he switches to English to tell the story of learning the kora from his father.

“Kelefa Ba” has a vocalist over an accompaniment. The accompaniment consists of the drum and the kora repeating a short rhythmic and melodic pattern. At certain times, for example the end of a verse, the drum or the kora may punctuate with a short flourish. The vocal melody is largely descending in melodic contour and uses pitches not found in western scales. The texture is thin and uses call and response. There are some vocal improvisations that feature the nasally Arabic vocal timbre, and there is a kora solo near the end of the performance.

Musical traits connected to the five W’s: “Kelefa Ba” performed by the griot family of Malamini Jobarteh.

The English commentary throughout this performance indicates that this video was produced to educate people outside the West African griot culture rather than for a festival or other community performance. Despite the absence of a live audience, because the ‘why’ of this performance is to teach about traditional culture, the musical traits emphasize the cultural traditions of the performers.

The song is an epic tale of an historic warrior, sung in the traditional style with improvised texts in between verses – in this case in English. Because the focus is on a long text, the texture contains vocal melodies accompanied by cyclic, repetitive patterns in the bell, kora and djembe. Because the verses and commentaries between the verses and refrains tend to be improvised, the cyclic use of short patterns allows maximum flexibility for melodies and texts of varying length. The focus being the text, the melodies are conjunct with narrow ranges. The main melody that returns is sung by the group and each syllable has its own note, while the verses in between this refrain contain more text than notes in a style that sounds more a little more like recitation than singing. During some verses we hear call and response, and after verses the kora plays melodic flourishes for punctuation. The main musicians are, as is usual in the griot culture, male so the main vocal timbres we hear are male. The female family griot enters after the first verse and sings with the chorus of men in between solos.

Sabar Drumming

While the djembe is found in most West African countries, sabar is a drum and dance style found only in Senegal. The drum is usually played by griot families for ceremonies like weddings, baby naming ceremonies, or ladies’ afternoon teas. Generally, these ceremonies take place on the street in the evening with women dressed in their finest clothes who dance in a sort of competition with one another. The event where these drums are played is also called a sabar.

Musically, sabar is a complex pattern of interlocking rhythms, each made with a combination of hand and stick strikes and played on a family of different sized drums. The focus is on particularly complex breaks that are often the signature identifying each griot family, each being introduced by a signal from the lead drummer. This video shows a series of rehearsals and short performance as a documentary of the best sabar players in Dakar, the capital city, rather than an actual sabar event, although there is a bit of the energetic traditional dance around towards the end of the video. However, the video shows much stronger footage of how the rhythm and solos are passed from one drummer to the next. Notice where they are all playing in unison and where they all have different parts. Of particular interest is the rhythm of the middle-sized drum called the mbëng-mbëng, as that is the rhythm that forms the base rhythm of mbalax.

Mbalax

The traditional roots of Senegal’s national popular music, mbalax, includes the sabar and griot traditions as described above. The name “mbalax” actually comes from the name of the rhythm played by the middle-sized mbëngmbëng drum in a set of sabar. The griots influence mbalax through the vocal styling and improvisation. Just as the kora plays a repetitive pattern to accompany the melody in griot music, in mbalax, the electric guitar often plays this type of pattern. Additionally, Western music, including blues, R&B and jazz, as well as Afro-Caribbean styles like Cuban son and Jamaican reggae play a strong role in mbalax in both the harmonic structure and they rhythmic groove.

Mbalax was born in the Médina neighborhood in the capital city of Dakar. In the 1970s, Médina, close to the business district in Dakar, was a populous neighborhood designated as purely African, as opposed to other neighborhoods colonized by the French. There the nightclub Sahel began showcasing musicians like Thione Seck and his group Raam Daan, and the young Youssou N’Dour and his group Étoile de Dakar (later Super Étoile), who went on to gain international acclaim and be described by the Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 as “perhaps the most famous singer alive.” There, these griots began experimenting fusing together traditional Senegalese music, Cuban music and American R&B and soul into a new popular sound that included familiar traditions of praise singing to local Muslim religious leaders, and drum and dance styles like sabar.

Mbalax largely mixes electric guitar, synthesizers and drum set with traditional Senegalese percussion such as the sabar drums, the tama or talking drum, and the djembe (the goblet shaped drum that is the most common drum in West Africa – see above). The heavy use of the traditional Senegalese percussion really defines the genre. The drum set player also weaves traditional rhythms into his performance. Occasionally a kora  (pictured above and seen on the right side of the stage in the video of “Gorel” especially at 1:11) is used,  but most often these parts are translated to the guitar or keyboard.  The bass generally plays a short repeated rhythmic and melodic pattern to hold the group together. Sometimes saxophones and trumpets are included, but frequently their parts are played by the synthesizer, especially in smaller groups. Each mbalax musician or group carefully selects the instrumentation and the traditional rhythms to create their own unique sound.

Baaba Maal

Guitarist and singer, Baaba Maal and his band, Daande Lenol (Voice of the People), are not only superstars in Senegal, but have long been respected on the international music scene. Maal was born to a family of Pulaar/Fulani fishermen in 1953 in the town of Fouta in the area of Podor. Fouta is a fishing village along the Senegal River on the border with Mauritania in the north of Senegal. Maal’s early musical training was at home where he learned the local traditional songs from his mother and heard his father, a muezzin, singing the “Adhan” or Muslim call to prayer in front of the local mosque. Additionally, he regularly heard the chanting of the Qur’an through the loudspeakers fixed to the top of a mosque as well as attending regular religious services.

As Baaba Maal was growing up in the early 1960s, there were two major radio stations in Senegal which played a variety of American and European music. In his documentary, A Voice for Africa, Maal recalls hearing rock and roll, and jazz, as well as reggae and Cuban salsa in later years. He also heard traditional Senegalese music, but only in the Wolof language, not in his native Fulani tongue. He vowed to change that.

First, however, Baaba Maal needed to document his local traditional music which he calls yella. Most professional musicians in Senegal are griots and were born into the music so to speak. Baaba Maal was not a griot, so gaining access to the griots and their traditional songs was a challenge, as the griots were wary of Maal’s intentions until he befriended Mansour Seck, a blind griot who played guitar. Together they traveled together to villages up and down the Senegal River gathering traditional songs and documenting the history of the Fula peoples. Armed with local musical knowledge, Baaba Maal attended the conservatory at the University of Dakar to study music, and later traveled to Paris to study music at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Baaba Maal began fusing together the traditional music he had gathered with the popular Western musical styles in the early 1980s as evidenced by his first major album called Djam Leelii which was recorded in 1984 but not released until 1989, the same year that he recorded with Peter Gabriel on the score to Martin Scorcese’s epic film, The Last Temptation of Christ. This launched a long collaboration with Gabriel, as well as Maal’s career working in film. Since then, Baaba Maal has performed on the soundtracks of eight different movies, including singing the music of the fictional nation of Wakanda in The Black Panther, where he was accompanied by Massamba Diop on the tama (talking drum).

While his work in films has increased his presence on the world stage, it is his eleven studio albums that have brought him fame in Senegal. His music includes a mix of traditional Fulani tunes and praise songs for the spiritual leaders of his Sufi Muslim tradition, as well as commentary on contemporary issues and events. Seen as a cultural leader, not only of his Fulani peoples, but for all of Senegal, Maal uses his status as a celebrated musician for humanitarian and environmental charitable causes like Green Peace, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, HIV awareness, human rights, and world peace.

In this video, “Gorel” is the opening song of a concert;  it begins with the traditional break played by four sabar drummers^[2]. The song, typical of West African music has a thick texture with many layers of sounds, some coming from the multiple drums used and some from layering the keyboard, guitar and kora who play separate but intertwining ostinatos, or short, repeated phrases. Typical of most African music, the form includes several call and response sections between lead and the background singers, sometimes in unison and sometimes in harmony, as well as with the audience. Maal’s voice is nasal, and his melodic embellishments clearly show the influence of traditional Arabic music. Many of the vocal phrases are punctuated by the talking drum.

The rhythm has a strong two-beat feel but is driven both by the traditional percussion and the repeated rhythms in the kora and running bassline that often closely follows the melody. At times, the drum set breaks away into a classic disco rhythm.  The melody is simple and generally moves either stepwise or in small interval jumps. Like most traditional African melodies, it descends at the end. The phrases are short and the form of the song generally follows a pattern of A (lead vocal) B (vocal ensemble) C (ensemble with descending melody and disco beat) and Chorus with call and response between lead and talking drum.

Since this is an opening song of the show, the band calls Baaba to the stage with a chant in French, “Baaba, allez Baaba, jusqu’à le monde” loosely translated, “Baaba, go to the world.”

Musical Traits Connected to the 5 Ws: “Gorel” performed by Baaba Maal

Let’s listen again to “Gorel,” this time with understanding the cultural and musical context surrounding the birth of this genre. Although mbalax was born in the nightclubs in the Medina neighborhood of Dakar, it is now played on the world stage as evidenced by Baaba Maal’s performance of “Gorel” at the Royal Festival Hall in London. While the vast majority of the audience cannot understand the words with their cultural and religious references, the deep groove of the rhythm can be appreciated without the words. The ‘why’ of mbalax is to combine traditional musical instruments and traits with globally popular instruments and traits.

For this song, the “what” and “where” are most interesting, but both of those depend on the “who” and “why.” The blend of the traditional Senegalese music and Western music is very complex and includes not only traditional rhythms and patterns from the sabar and griot traditions but it also mixes in traditional Arabic vocal stylings with religious overtones with the use of predominantly Western instruments found in a traditional R&B band. And in fact, the performance happens indoors on a Western stage, as opposed to a more traditional outdoor performance. While the audience is appreciative of this international tour, they are much more passive than African audiences. The understanding of these musical and cultural nuances is what gives this performer, Baaba Maal, the edge as a professional and makes the idea of the ‘”who” important here. He has studied the roots of both his traditional and Western music, and carefully selects how to blend them together. Baaba Maal’s mission has always been to bring the traditional music of his Pulaar/Fulani peoples to the world stage, as well as to shed light on the issues they and the Senegalese people face. It is for this reason that songs like “Gorel,” recorded in 2008 are still viewed as contemporary music today.

Conclusions

Consider again the beginning of this chapter where you were asked to think about the familiar and unfamiliar sounds in “Gorel.” Listen to the song again. What sounds more familiar to you now than when you first listened to the song? Where do you hear traditional instruments and traits?

In this chapter we have explored several Senegalese traditions – griot music and sabar. We analyzed ‘Kelefa Ba” an historical epic sung by griots accompanied by, in this case, the kora, djembe and bell playing short repetitive patterns to accompany a melody that contains both a returning refrain and improvised melodies and texts. These traits are fused with specific sabar patterns and traits from American and Cuban popular styles in a contemporary Senegalese style called mbalax. We analyzed Baaba Maal’s “Gorel” to identify these various influences and musical traits.

Finally

Before you leave this chapter, go to Spotify, YouTube, or Soundcloud.com and find another song recorded by Baaba Maal. Listen to the song and describe the musical elements that you hear in the song you chose. Review what you have learned about Senegalese music and culture, and think about how the sounds of their music connect to their cultural values.