Oumou
Sangaré (b. 1968, Mali)
Wassoulou musical style, Fulani culture
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Oumou
Sangaré
Though
born in Bamako in February 1968, Oumou Sangaré is a native of the
Wassoulou region, a lush green area of southern Mali on the border with Guinea.
Musically this is a very rich area, considered the cradle of the finest
voices in the country. Oumou Sangaré, a
Peul,
is not a member of the Griot
caste.
"In
Wassoulou tradition, it is usually the men who dance and the women who sing at
ceremonies. My mother did so, and my grandmother was something of a star. They
sang at weddings and baptisms, and I learned their art when I accompanied
them."
She
joined the Djoliba percussion ensemble in 1986, leaving Mali for the first time
on a tour that took her to France, Germany and the West Indies. On her return,
she embarked on a solo career, but still went on singing at weddings and
baptisms.
"Like
all woman performers in Africa, I had a lot of difficulty at the beginning. It
isn't easy for them to direct a group of men. But I wasn't disheartened, because
making music is the thing I hold dearest."
In
1989, producer Ahmadou Ba Guindo brought her to Abidjan to record her first
album, Moussolou ,which came
out a year later. Oumou Sangaré was a star overnight. Her album topped sales in
Mali for 1990. And in 1993, with
her second album, she made her mark on the European world circuit. Called
Ko Sira ("song of the young girls going down to the marigot"),
recorded in Berlin and mixed in London, it stayed at the top of the Musiques au
Mondes charts for three straight months. The lead title was
"Bi Fourou", or "Marriage Today," a strong attack on the
practice of forced marriages. Another number, "Saa Magni," is a particularly poignant recitative song,
an ode to the memory of a friend who has died too soon.
Oh
death, oh death
Death
is too hard
Death
is too cruel
Death,
that has struck Ahmadou Ba Guindo
But
death spares no one
Nothing
stops it
Not
even glory
Or
having many children
Great
wealth and abundant friends.
The music of this "Wassoulou gazelle", also
called "the nightingale", is of the style created by Koumba Sidibé.
It is characterized by short, rapid vocal phrasing. Oumou projects her limpid
voice against a background of perfectly placed chorus singers. Her voice goes
from one high register to another even higher, intertwining with the pulsing
sound of the kamale n'goni , a sort of six-stringed kora commonly known as the
"kids' guitar". Oumou
Sangaré has formed a group around this formation that contributes so largely to
her particular sound: electric bass, guitar, violins with Arab overtones, flute,
chorus, and percussion provided by the carignan , a metal grater struck with a
piece of iron. She takes the musical tradition of the Wassoulou hunters, and
turns it into something utterly modern.
Oumou
Sangaré lives in Bamako [Mali], and uses her songs to wage a campaign in favour
of the role of women in African society.
"I embraced the cause of women even before I sang."
The words to her songs, in the Wassoulou language, are in the Malinke moral
homily tradition. They talk of feelings, and of society. "Dugu Kamelemba"
("skirt chaser") tells of a woman who is seduced, then abandoned. Oumou Sangaré has respect for tradition, but attacks
pitilessly the abuses of polygamy and arranged marriages
:
"I have lived in a polygamous family, and have seen how blighted women are.
I have hated polygamy ever since. It is hard, in my opinion, to share a
heart." She
sings of the confusion of African woman, torn
"between traditional
values and those of society today, which in my songs are represented by the
ancestral forests and the city. I have tried to make my music modern, because
life in Africa is changing. We must evolve. I support the women of Africa in
their effort to express themselves. It is time the voice of women was heard,
their contribution recognised."
Sangare’s
Discography :
Moussolou
, WCD 021, World Circuit, 1991 (distributed by Night and Day)
Ko
Sira , WCD
036, World Circuit, 1993 (distributed by Night and Day)
(Source: Wim Westerveld, Chazz!,
Netherlands; Available at:
http://www.ina.fr/AeS/5/5_95_08.en.html
(accessed July 1997)
See also Index to 100 CD Intro to African Music –
in French and English
http://www.ina.fr/CP/AfricArt/100CD/index_principal.html
(accessed July 1997)
Female Griots among the Fulani [or Peul]
Perhaps Sangare’s gifted Fulani grandmother was a
female griot (called Awlube) who specialized in oral song-poetry
like the “Yela.” Scholar Abdoul
Aziz Sow explains:
“Accompanied by gourds that are pounded on the ground,
the Yela is a collection of songs of eulogy, denigration and
entertainment; they are sung by the women from the caste of the Awlube (griots)
and are addressed to people from the noble castes.
Reputedly introduced to the Futa Toro as a consequence of Koli Tenella's
sixteenth-century conquests, the Yela exists in several versions (e.g.,
that of the Haal pulaar'en, that of the Fulani in Boundou, and that of the
Bambara), but they all share a common melody.
“…[T]he Yela is sung with very few variations.
A number of the songs were composed long ago and handed down unchanged
for generations. In fact, other than the great established songs, there are no
new compositions; the fragments that are still being performed were transmitted
in their present form without modification, except for the names of the people
to whom they are addressed. The song always begins with a collection of
untranslatable sentences or phrases:
Eee yuu siree
Yee woyyoo yelaa ee! (refrain)
Aayee yeelee! (refrain taken up in chorus by the
other women)
Aayoo yuu siree
Ee ooro leyyoo laala laalaa
Aayee yeelee (refrain)
Ala yoo laala laalaa
Alaa laa leyyoo
Ee yoolee!
Aayee yeelee (refrain)
After
this prelude, the song continues:
Yimde welii
Ko yimtaade welii yoo!
Aayee yeelee! (refrain)
Mbodo yima laamdo
Mo naana kelle e cakaade.
Aayee yeelee! (Refrain)
[English
Translation:]
[How
good it is to sing
Oh! It's good to sing (oneself)
Refrain:
I sing about a sovereign
Who never hears the shouts of the people.]
“Sung under all sorts of circumstances (e.g., weddings,
baptisms, and other Fulani celebrations), the Yela begins when a group of
female griots sit down with their gourds, which they pound on the ground.
One or two of the women set the beat; the others take up the choral
refrain. The young unmarried female griots are allowed to dance while
manipulating a shawl. On rare occasions, a Bammbaado (guitarist) might
accompany the women, playing a melody that is known as ana. Under no
circumstances are the men permitted to sing with the women, for the men have
specialized in the genealogies of the great families. . .
“The most striking aspect of Fulani oral poetry is its
rhythm. Indeed, rhythm is the most
important defining characteristic of African poetry: It is its very essence. The skillful use of numerous
linguistic resources in this poetry is obscured in English, which is
insufficiently flexible to convey many of the verbal and aesthetic nuances of
the Fulani originals. In any case,
the poet is as indispensable to Fulani society as any other individual.
Steward and artisan of the word, crystallizer of the people's collective
memory, eulogist of the ancestors' noble deeds and exploits, [s/]he remains the
genuine promoter of cultural and social values.”
Source:
Sow,
Abdoul Aziz. “Fulani Poetic
Genres.”(Special Issue: Oral Literature) Research
in African Literatures 24.2(Summer 1993): 61(17pp). Full text available at COCC: Infotrac 2000 Expanded
Academic ASAP Article A13891469.
Abstract: “The
Fulani people of the northern Senegal River have songs which fit poetic genres.
There are different songs for fishermen, weavers, warriors, hunters, cattle
drivers, women griots, merchants, nomad entertainment, shepherds, lullabies,
eulogies, rejoicing, mockery and special occasions. Examples of the poems are
provided.”
Review of Oumou Sangare’s CD
Worotan
(Afrique en Créations-Paris 1997; language: Bambara)
Supporting
Musicians on CD Worotan:
Nabintou
Diakité and Alima Touré, chorus
Brehima Diakité, kamale n'goni
Boubacar Diallo, guitar
Aliou Traoré, violin
Colin Bass and Alou Ouattara, bass guitars
Ibrahima Sarr, djembé
“No
one could better illustrate the Wassoulou
style than this young, radiant, highly accomplished artist. With her pure
voice, clear as spring water, and the supple swaying of her carefully woven
orchestration, she brings new life to the
musical tradition of the hunters, lifting it to a subtle peak of perfection
so appreciated by lovers of world music. Her taste is perfect. The kamelen
n'goni, a small six-string harp played off the beat, sprinkles its rustic,
muffled, piquant arpeggios. The electric guitar and bass weave in and out of the
melodic modulations, alternately loose and tight, brought together by fluted
choral refrains. The polyrhythms played by the djembe,
the large half-calabashes and with cauris
(instruments played by women at wedding ceremonies in the Sikasso region)
never descend to the standard two-four time that inundates our radio waves.
These songs radiate an exquisite charm, as does Oumou Sangare herself: she is a
much-cherished diva whose third album deserves every success.”
Available
from: http://www.ina.fr/AfricArt/100CD/CD/017.html
World Circuit (WCD 045), Aire Mandingue, Mandingue region, Mali
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Oumou
Sangaré
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Sangaré
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03 January 2010
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