Senagalese superstar singer Baaba Maal swept through the Chi as part of his US tour to promote his new album, Television. He’d already been to L.A., been featured on National Public Radio and on CNN and he’s now on his way to New York to perform on the Jimmy Fallon show. I was honored to be asked by Baaba’s company to moderate a discussion with him, the man who has dedicated his life’s song work to tunes that make a difference and is frequently compared to none other than Bono in terms of the world music scene.
It was just Baaba and I on stage, relaxing in two leather chairs with four bottles of water between us. First question. Why call this album Television?
(dear reader: please not that his answers are not direct quotes, but approximations of the conversation. I did not have a notebook in hand during my on-stage interview. I’ll be posting the entire show in a week or so.. These are just my own notes.)
His answer? Africa has always had TV but now it’s more prolific and everywhere. It’s a stranger coming into your house with words and sounds that are foreign, yet familiar. It’s a good idea and a bad one all at the same time, especially now that everyone recognizes that there is culture to be preserved amongst the peoples who populate the continent of Africa.
Second question. This is your first album in eight years. What have you been doing in that time frame?
His answer: I started a music festival in my hometown in Senegal. I am what you Americans might call Fulani and I give my people and all the people of Africa an opportunity to come and play music in December for a stirring festival. It’s called the Blues de Fleuve Festival and it takes place in Podor, Senegal. I’ve been working with the people and with the United Nations Development Programme to improve Africa, to show that through music we can improve and bring the technology and education we need to bring Africa to where she needs to be.
He then performed a 20-minute acoustic set with two band members. You can view a portion of the set here. This is actually my favorite song off the album, “Dakar Moon.”
More on Baaba….
We talked for about a half hour as the crowd of 100 listened, laughed and clapped at many of Baaba’s comments. He talked of the irony of folks expecting African music to sound a certain stereotypical way while those folks insist that Africa must give computers to every household. You can’t have it both ways, he says. Once you give the people technology, they will use it everywhere – including in their own music.
We talked of the criticisms of Television, wherein many say that his music doesn’t sound “African enough” for them. He laughed, adding that he is evolving his traditional music and that the heartbeat – the drum – is ever present.
I asked him if he’d ever be interested in being an actual politician. He quickly said no. The crowd roiled with laughter. Why? Because Baaba IS politics, because in Africa, a musician is just as powerful as a mayor or a president.
We talked of Femi Kuti, the terrible situation in Guinea, Obama’s Nobel Prize, generational musical differences, the marked absence of hip-hop on his album despite the marked addition of Latin tones and why his entire album supports the thrusts of the United Nations Development Programme.
Basically, he told me, AFrican artists do not sing just to be singing. They have a point . Every verse has meaning and everything has to eventually help raise the consciousness or education of the people. He doesn’t have time to sing craziness. He sings solutions.
Baaba wanted to know if I had ever lived outside of Chicago.
I have. I’ve lived and worked in several US and non-US cities, in fact.
I told him that I’d been to Dakar (the capital of Senegal), while on a fellowship provided by both the United Nations and the National Association of Black Journalists. I was there to cover the UN youth summit and development program. (I loved Senegal and almost cried when I had to return back to the states, but more on that in another post.)
We connected when talking about our mothers and female empowerment. He doesn’t believe that women need to only sit home, raise babies and cook dinner. Raising a family is necessary for culture to survive, he says, but mothers in Africa have so much to offer in terms of sheer brain power that it’s time to harness that.
He said so much. I learned so much.
My favorite song off the new album is Dakar Moon, a haunting, melodic tale that reminds us to be ecological stewards of the planet. It’s also one of a very few songs in English on his album. The rest is in Wolof, French and the other languages that Baaba speaks.
If you’re not up on Baaba Maal, now’s a great time to expand your musical palate. Even if you can’t understand the words of Tindo Quando, another acoustic-guitar heavy song that sounds like a sad yet triumphant lullaby, you will sway to it and be moved by it. Music lovers take note. This is one album to add to the collection.
Peace.
