under a mango tree
Miranda Sawyer
World music is defined as All Contemporary Popular Music that Comes from Anywhere Outside Europe or North America Except Jamaica, and for that reason it isnt about to hit the mainstream. This isnt because its useless, or difficult, or because philistine Western taste cant cope with anyone who sings in foreign: its because the conglomerates that run the global music industry wont invest in something that they dont think is a seller.
Their reasoning? World musics local audience cant afford to buy CDs; world musics talent requires all sorts of tricky visas to get to Los Angeles or London; world music isnt cool enough to be put on the cover of taste-defining magazines, or played on MTV oh, and Western philistines cant cope with anyone that sings in foreign.
Just occasionally, a crossover hit proves them wrong. Last year it was Seven Seconds by Youssou NDour and Neneh Cherry. Of course, the record conformed exactly to crossover hit rules. One: the tune must have a sound immediately pleasing to Western ears, and two: a mainstream star must sing too.
Rule number two is presumably why a man touted as the new Bob Marley has travelled in four aeroplanes over a day- and-a-half from Kingston, Jamaica to Dakar, Senegal. The sparkly-eyed, sparklier- grinned Luciano is quite a big boy on todays reggae scene, and hes come to promote his single, made with Senegalese musician Baaba Maal. Lucianos rule two qualifications are few, but they exist. He has topped reggae charts in New York, London and Kingston; plus hes had a United States hit with hip-hop stars The Jungle Brothers. The Bob Marley tag came because Luciano is a Rastafarian who sings of roots and riddim, love and culture.
But here he is, touched down in Mother Africa for the very first time in his life (a highly significant event for a Rastafarian) and he doesnt appear to want to get off the plane. Everyone else on the flight left a good 10 minutes ago. Luciano and his fellow Jamaican rasta musicians are hanging about murmuring to one another. Words likepeace, Jah, blessd drift over.
Theyre so relaxed you half-expect one of them to spark up a spliff. Will we never leave? Suddenly, a sweating, grey-robed man comes hurtling along the aisle. Come on, come on, he flaps. Once were out, we understand why. Theres quite a reception committee. A slew of jaw-droppingly beautiful women smile and mill; bright- gowned officials push forward, hands outstretched; a TV cameraman shoves right to the front.
Luciano rises to the occasion and slips off his sandals. The Motherland! Thanks be to Jah, he intones dutifully, and moves towards the slim figure in the centre of the mle. Baaba, cries Luciano, and the two embrace.
Maal, Senegals most popular traditional performer, is the most astonishing-looking man. His tiny, broad-browed head balances above his frame like a squash ball on a skewer. Hes wearing all black tonight, with a flat-brimmed black hat, under which his skin glistens as indigo ink. A single diamond sparks in his ear. He makes you tremble at 40 feet.
We all troop to an anteroom, where Luciano and Maal give a TV interview. A man bellows Jah!. Rastafari! trumpets Luci. They fall upon each other, doing the rasta greeting, which resembles the twisting, shoulder-knocking dance people used to do to Tiger Feet.
The journey from Dakar airport to Maals house is extraordinary. Thousands of people are chanting, dancing, bashing drums. Theyve been waiting for Baaba for three hours, says our driver. When his van emerges containing Maal, the Jamaicans, plus umpteen others clutched on to the sliding door, standing on the back bumper the crowd heaves forward, tries to grab on. Our van, too, is swarming.
As we drive off, scooters zip up alongside, tooting madly. In front, bumping along unmade roads, Maals van is topped by Mikey Dread, one of Lucianos band, lying on the roof, legs waving, hat askew, triumphantly shaking his Haile Selassie poster at the velvet sky.
Maals home is a five-room bungalow that houses up to 30 people at a time (plus a smattering of children and anxious goats). When we arrived, it was packed with brothers, cousins, aunts, his teenage son Omar, and several long-limbed youths who run errands in exchange for food and the chance to hang out there.
Over the next couple of days, there was a press conference (Luciano: The power is within! Not in the material world, in some fancy cities, some Jacuzzi!; Maal dignified, imperious, translating Luciano into more measured French) and a video shoot. This last involved a visit to teeming suburbs, to dreamy fishing beaches, and a live performance at the local Cyber Cafe, where a crowd waited 11 hours for Maal to play. Everywhere Maal goes, people flock, rush, cheer. He is never, ever alone.
On Friday night, a television special is filmed in a vast modern hall, in honour of Maals birthday. Everyone sings Joyeux Anniversaire. The audience, aged eight to 58, is dressed to the 99s. Maal performs with a band: guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, sax, bongos, tama (talking drum), kora (harp-like stringed instrument); plus backing singers, hyperactive dancers, 10 lords-a-leapin and anyone else who knows him.
The stage is jam-packed, as are the sides of the hall: which makes the clear area in front of the stage rather puzzling. The explanation comes about three songs in, when an elegant woman in the audience leaps to her feet and starts stamping and swaying. Soon after, a troupe of young girls carrying baskets sashays into the middle and sets about a traditional dance. Then up bound the huge elder women, cushion hips swinging, bopping cheeky boys out of their way.
Maal does two sets, with a break for a television interview in between. In total, he performs for more than four hours. Its something to witness: his voice wails and soars and roars and cries, his purple robes fluttering like flags. His band play with a fluidity that would make the Philarmonic jealous. When Luciano, a gifted performer, joins Maal onstage, you think: Luciano is the lucky invitee on this tune, not the other way around.
The next day, Maal and I drive out of Dakar to a small piece of land he owns south of the city. When we arrive, various robed men insist on shaking his hand, and we talk in the presence of four or five others, lounging in the shade of a mango tree. Maal is polite and friendly, yet I feel a little nervous. Its like interviewing God. I ask him why he is not content with success within his own country, why he wants to triumph abroad.
When I grew up and went to school, he trills in lightly accented English, I listened to a lot of music coming far away from me, Western music, American black music. And I think, why dont I take traditional music and make it as big as the Western music I hear on the radio? It is a kind of revolt. The voice of these people, of my country, talking to other people of the world.
Actually, Maal isnt after international success in the way most record companies would understand it. This curious, well- educated man, who studied at Dakars musical conservatory and then at the Parisian Ecole des Beaux Arts (a friend donated the money), is in the business of information exchange, of music like a science, of cultures learning from others.
He was born in Podor, in the north of Senegal, and lived with his father, mother and 11 siblings. Plus his fathers other wife, her 12 children, and all his fathers brothers and sisters. In one house.
It was like a village. It was a house with a lot of houses in it. There was no wall between them, you could go between houses and have tea and sleep there. Sometimes teachers came to teach the Koran and stay for months, and work in the field with the family. And we were singing all night around a big fire.
Maal is good at explaining. He explains about the Senegalese understanding of life (It is short, you never live to more than 100, everything you get youre going to lose, you are not so important. So be sure you use the life for other people because it is passing). Also about how he gives concerts in Dakars stadium every Saturday so that the proceeds can go to build a classroom, or support a hospital.
Maal speaks passionately and inspirationally. You can feel your Western cynicism melting in the sweltering African afternoon. Its terrifying.
Has he always been like this? Has he always been so regal and gosh-darned right? Maal fixes me with a kindly, kingly stare. I am always like this, since I was a child, he announces.
Even my parents know. At five or six, I wanted things to be right. I was serious inside. I wanted people to be serious and clean, tell the truth. You can laugh but you must be sincere.
You know, says Baaba Maal, 44, single parent, serious saviour, I want to bring to the world the Senegal way of being warm in the life. We can be suffering, we can be poor, we can have a lot of problems in the country, but you can come here and see there is still a kind of harmony in our people, a hope. And the music is just a reflection of us in life.