| |
 Boubacar
Traore is a harmonious contradiction, a musician whose art and
biography are striking not so much for their balance as for
their extremes. An idol for the whole west coast of Africa in
the 1960s, forgotten in the 1970s, rediscovered in the 1980s,
and now touring once again in Europe and, for the first time,
in North America in the 1990s.
In the sixties, the people of Mali awoke each morning to his
music on the radio. In the evening, they'd dance to it in clubs.
They called him Kar Kar, from kari kari, meaning "one who dribbles
too much". The name has stuck ever since those soccer-playing
days. His big hit, Mali Twist, served as a kind of national
anthem for the newly emerging country of Mali, in 1963. In the
song he called upon his compatriots to rebuild the country after
independence. He was regarded alternately as the Chuck Berry,
the James Brown, the Elvis Presley and the Johnny Hallyday of
Mali, but because there were no music royalties paid, he rarely
had enough money in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He
turned to other kinds of work - tailor, a salesman, agricultural
agent - and his music became something shared only with a close
circle of friends. 
In 1987, he appeared on Malian television, surprising the
whole country, many of whom mistook him for his older brother,
also a musician, who indeed had died a few years before. When
his beloved wife Pierette died suddenly that same year, Boubacar
was lost in grief. He left for France, determined to earn
enough money to support his 6 children at home. He worked
construction jobs, and played guitar only within the African
expatriate community there. A few years later a British record
producer happened to hear a tape of a radio show Boubacar
had performed on, and excitedly sent someone to Bamako to
find him. The people in Bamako sent this emissary to Kayes,
Boubacar's home village in western Mali. There he learned
that Boubacar wasn't in Mali at all, but in Paris. They
eventually tracked him down, and brought him to England to
record two new albums. His career took on a new life. He toured
in England, Switzerland, and Canada, and played select dates
in the United States. Upon his return to Mali, a studio in
Bamako, at the Revue Noir's initiative, produced his
third album, Les Enfants de Pierette (Pierette's Children),
with the participation of several big names in Malian music
including Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate and Ketetigul Diabate.
Boubacar has continued to record new material and Rolling
Stone magazine named his 2000 album Macire one of the top
50 albums of the year.
"If guitarist Ali Farka Toure is Mali's answer
to John Lee Hooker, then Boubacar Traore is Mali's Robert
Johnson," wrote one critic, and with good reason. The
sense of rhythm, space and time in Boubacar's music
cannot help but remind us of the seminal American blues figure.
The roots of the music are in the distinctive Khassonke rhythms
of the Kayes region in northwest Mali, but Arabic influences
are also present. However, it would be a mistake to think
he is simply a blues musician. Although there is a strong
case to be made for connecting the historic links of American
blues with the music from Mali, in fact the music of Mali
incorporates a much broader spectrum than can be attributed
to the branch that leads to our blues. To label him simply
as a blues musician fails to recognize the magnificent traditions
of this great African culture. If you do not take "blues"
as a form of music, but rather as a description of a feeling,
you begin to discover the key to Kar Kar and his music.
 For
Boubacar Traore, his melodies are songs to which the guitar
sings the second vocal part. "The guitar has a magic attraction
for me", he says in trying to describe his relationship with
the instrument. He plays the guitar as if it were a kora, the
21 stringed harp that is so well known in Malian music.
In 2005 First Run Features will release to DVD the documentary
film I'll Sing for You, a brilliant and touching portrait
of Boubacar's life story directed by Jacques Sarasin and produced
by Jonathan Demme. The film's soundtrack is availabe from Marabi
Records. Harmonia Mundi's World
Village label will release the brand new studio album Kongo
Magni, featuring 10 new songs recorded in Bamako, on September
13. Boubacar will tour North America in September and October.
Boubacar is an artist who has affected an entire generation.
His is the voice of a nation, its hopes and its fears. He
is a storyteller, and his songs deal with daily living, the
many facets of love, political conditions and solidarity.
Sometimes they are small parables, resonant with meanings
we'll never be able to understand, but clear to his
friends. Perhaps the final words are best said by one of his
peers, Ali Farka Toure: "If the maximum is five, I give
ten to Kar Kar".
|
Purchase Boubacar Traore's Music
Online:
|
| Amazon.com |
|
