Category: Music & Culture

Article broadly about music, art and culture

NEW BOOK – Music, Culture & Conflict in Mali

My new book MUSIC, CULTURE & CONFLICT IN MALI takes an in-depth look at the crisis that overtook Mali in January 2012 and lead to a ten-month occupation of the northern two-thirds of the country by armed jihadi groups. The book examines the roots of those tumultuous events and their ef- fect on the music and culture of the country. There are chapters on music under occupation in the north, the music scene in Bamako, the destruction of mausoleums in the north, the fate of Mali’s precious manuscripts, Mali’s film and theatre industries and the response to the crisis from writers, poets, journalists, intellectuals and film-makers.

DANYEL WARO – Mongrel and proud

Danyel Waro; La Renuion; Maloya

Like the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and Eminem, Danyel Waro has taken a style of music that wasn’t his by birthright and fashioned it into something new. The music in question is maloya.

AFROCUBISM – An old transatlantic love story

AfroCubism: Eliades Ochoa and Bassekou Kouyate

When the record producer Nick Gold traveled to Cuba in the early 1990s he had the genius to perceive the well-spring of love for Cuban music that still flowed through Mali and West Africa and appreciate the strength of their intertwining histories.