Baaba Maal

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0:11Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which the world's leading creative people reveal the biggest influences on their work and the experiences that have inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson and my guest in this episode is Senegalese singing star Baba Mal, one of the most internationally acclaimed West African musicians. He trained at a Paris conservatoire and went on to become something of a musical ambassador, taking stories of his homeland all around the world. MUSIC PLAYS He's collaborated with Brian Eno and Hans Zimmer, recorded an album with Mumford & Sons and was a key member of the Africa Express touring project led by Damon Albarn.

1:08A festival favourite, Baba Mala's energised crowds at Glastonbury and the Proms alike. More recently, Marvel fans know him as the voice of Wakanda having sung on the Black Panther movie soundtracks.

1:28Baba Mal, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you very much. You were born in Senegal, North Senegal, in West Africa. Tell us about home life. What was life like when you were growing up as a kid? Poudor is a beautiful little town. Poudor? Yes. It's where you meet many of these African ethnic groups came to live together with its own culture. People from Mali and then the people from Guinea or Fulanese people. Oh, so it was a real melting pot culturally. Very, very big melting pot, and where people also are really free, because Pordord is a free place where kings who lose their power just come and start a new life, and slaves who run away from their masses can come and start a new life.

2:14They're free, you know. So when you're free, you bring out everything that is in your culture. You say kings, though? Kings? Kings, yeah. You mean historically? historically in the past. They just came. And when I was growing up, all the descendants of these kings which also came from Mali and from Guinea just came to start a new life down there. You hear all the family names from West Africa down there, which they come from different communities, different way of playing music, different instruments, different songs, different language. Interesting. That's interesting. So right from a young age, you were hearing lots of different types of music.

2:54sung in different languages. And on the top of that, you hear a lot of things from your grandmom, your mother, who are also women down there with musicians in their daily life. When you're making the food for the family or you're washing the clothes for the family, they always sing.

3:19Senegal was still a French colony, wasn't it, when you were born in the early 1950s? Yeah. How do you remember it being? What was it like before independence in 1959? I can't remember that much before independence. I was seven years old and I started to hear people say, and this is the independence. I even didn't know what's the meaning of being independent. Your father was a fisherman, wasn't he? Were you expected to follow his work? I was not that fit to expect to follow my father. I was small. and my father also was more interested to take me to the school to have a son who was really, really good educated.

3:57And I thank him for that because the school just gave me a lot of opportunities to travel before I start to be traveling by looking at the books, reading and trying to understand what's surrounding me in this country and then later from the outside of Senegal. So he was really keen for you to have a wider perspective on life. He was very different from the oldest people. He was respecting the fact that he is from a traditional community group, but at the same time he wanted his children to be very modern. He was also a muezzin, wasn't he? He was leading the call to prayer at the mosque. He had a beautiful voice.

4:43I surprise myself sometimes to wake up very early in the morning, at five o 'clock in the morning and just to listen to his voice. And his voice was so beautiful that when he gets amplified, but these small speakers, it surrounded all my village, people all my, this town, and people can really hear him from far, far away. And how did he become the Muslim? He loved music. He was attracted by the spirituality to be a musician, to participate also to sing in these religious parties that happens in the nights on the Friday night or Thursday nights. Were you musical as a child? Me? Yes. I loved music.

5:25I think the music was calling me. Whenever I hear a woman singing or someone playing an instrument, I was attracted by that. I come to sit near them and just listen and surprise myself when I'm alone just to try to repeat the same thing, you know, without even knowing the meaning of the words. It's just the music. I was fascinated by music.

5:55On this programme, on This Cultural Life, I ask my guests to choose the most important people, places and events that have helped shape their own creativity. And the first big influence that you've chosen is your parents, not just your father, but your mother as well. What did she teach you musically? My mother was a good singer with a very beautiful voice. And she used to spend the afternoon after her work feeding us with her friends. And I can see them trying to compose songs, to write songs. With her friends. Not writing on the feet, but just to compose in their mind. And these songs have become very, very, very popular.

6:37and they perform it in the ceremonies of marriage or baptisms or funerals and all these women take the songs and add some elements of their life and the song goes and comes back to us, transforms into something. Musical storytelling. Musical storytellers, you know. Women down there at that time just went to express what they're feeling. For example, their love or their suffering or their nostalgia for some reason, or they want to praise someone who has been good to them. They always do it with music. And they are really, really good composers. And music that they compose, these songs, gets very, very popular in this area.

7:21And you mentioned her work. What was she doing? She was leading the group. She had his own ballet. and locally they entertain people when they have some ceremonies. Oh, so this was her job to be a musician. That was her job also to be a musician. But she was not allowed to go to travel and to perform and to get paid. It's a job of every woman down there. They love to sing and sing for any occasion, for anyone who has been good or has been to be praised.

8:05And was she a big influence on you as well? And the sort of music, not just the sort of music, but the stories that you tell in your music? My mother was like an advisor for me, because when I started to perform, she was always there sitting at the front of the crowd, just looking at me, see how good I'm a dancer. And then when we go back home, she will call me and say, for example, this part of this song, you should have not tell it like this because it has to be said like this. Because if you say it like you have said it this afternoon, a generation, which is an older generation, can't listen to you.

8:47You have to know how do you say things. She was so, so happy to see me performing because she was not allowed to go to perform out of our hometown. And she was wishing that one day maybe his boy will go to do the work that he was not allowed to do because women, there was a lot of restriction on the freedom of women down there. You are married, you are at your house, you raise up the children. This is where you stay. You're not allowed to do more than that. And you've mentioned dance a couple of times, so there are different elements. It's not just the music, the melodies and the storytelling, but it's the movement that comes in.

9:25In general, it's entertainment. We entertain ourselves down there, you know. Everyone entertains everyone else. When we have a party, it's everyone who's part of the party, the singers, the drummers, the dancers, and everyone do, except when it comes to the drummers, it's always the men, but when it comes to singing and dances, it's mostly the women and the young ones. and I was young, so people come to say to my mum sometimes, we need you to lend us, your young boy, to come to be part of our entertainment this afternoon. It's just that. There is no payment. It's just you participate and you go.

10:14Just explain the role of the griot within society as well, because if everybody's joining in and everybody's playing some kind of musical role, the gringo stands alone. He's almost a leader, he's a storyteller, isn't he? There is a different type of music you have to know in Africa. In West Africa, I can say this is the popular music. It's the music that everyone can write a song or perform it in front of everyone. Young, old, it doesn't matter. You are talented, you can do that. and there is the religious music which is like my dad but there is also the music of the griots it's more than music it's storytellers it's the people who keep the tradition it's also people who come to remind two families who have problems that they all come from the same source they come from the same origin the problem is not something that has to divide them they play that role to bring people And to do all of that, they use the music like reference.

11:16They can bring some type of music, some words or some proverbs in the music and say this is the responsibility of a human being where you are in a community, in a group, to bring the harmony between people of the group.

11:40So not just telling stories, but also giving a sort of moral framework to the way that you live. Yeah, and they know easily how to do it without hurting everyone. Because when you use the music, you use the proverb, you touch its blood, you touch its soul, before even you give him the advice you want to give to give it to him. And they are trained for that. Did you want to perform that sort of role? And was that possible? Or did you have to inherit those roles? I just wanted to be a musician. I just wanted to sing and to be able to dance and to perform in front of people. And it did lead me to the Griot Heritage when I met Mansour Sek, my friend.

12:22And because he's a Griot himself, since I was with him, I was singing, he was playing guitar and then singing and making the backing vocals for me. It introduced me in the Gria's families and they adopted me like I was one of them.

12:47But can you become a Gria officially? No. You have to inherit that role from the family. No, you have to have the names of the Gria's family names. Right. You have to be a Sek or a Kuyate or a Jabate or to be a Griot, you know. So Mansour Sek was from a Griot family. He was born Griot. And you started working with him at a young age. At what point did you think music could be my life, that you could have become a professional musician, that you could earn a living from being a musician? When I went to high school, when I was first time recorded by someone who was there at the national radio, he came, I was a scout boy and we had this big jamboree this big meeting of all the scout boys from Senegal Scout boys so we were celebrating the scout boys he pulled up his microphone and just start recording, when I was singing my friend did push me into the middle of the circle and say go sing the song from your town, and I start singing one song, and he recorded it and in the afternoon he just put this at the radio, I was walking and I hear my voice and the radio i say wow this is interesting frightening but also really interesting i can't do that and people started to say yes you can be a musician and i started also to think that it's a possibility that must have been amazing to hear your voice coming out of the radio very very very very frightening at the first time this small speaker just you don't know where it comes from and the horse is passing through and people will turn their head to look at you my friends and listen to that it's really magic I think at that time.

14:27Did your parents hear you? I didn't want my parents to know about that. Why? Because my dad didn't want to he wanted me to perform in my hometown but to take it like a job and to drop your studies he was not angry with that. So you're pushed to the front by your friends that recording happened it was very spontaneous can you remember what you sang that day? I remember.

14:56It's a song from my hometown. And what's it about? A young girl who was washing her clothes and was singing about her life near the river. Have you sung that song a lot over the years? No, no, no. I think that was maybe the few times I sing that song. when I was at high school. What was it that persuaded you that you should pursue this dream, that you should become a musician? I decided to be musicians because my generation at that time wanted to get away from the caste system, which means you are not condemned to be what your father or grandfather are. And they needed a voice, and they thought maybe my voice was the voice who will come to make the difference.

15:47We'll lead them to say, yes, we are free now. We will always do what we want to do. I'm a fisherman's son, but I want to be a griot or I want to be something else. I'm not condemned to be a fisherman. So it wasn't just you deciding you want to be a musician. There was almost people around you saying, look, you do this on our behalf as well. Yes. This is important that you become our voice. Yeah, that generation, my generation, was my first support. If it wasn't that generation, maybe I would not be here today because I needed people who were saying, yes, go, we are surrounding you. We are with you.

16:25You are talking on the behalf of what we want to do. We are at the high school. We are intellectual peoples, and we want to go away from this caste system. During some of the riots, they just invite me just to come to perform, and everyone will come to join me, to listen to me, and at the end of my small performance of 15 minutes, we will take a decision what action we're going to take the next morning. So I find myself that I'm in the middle of an engagement of my generation to change something in our country, maybe something in the world. Riots happening in Dhaka? In San Luis. In San Luis, I was in a high school called Charles de Gaulle.

17:09the riots was happening in France in 1968 and having impacted. So we wanted to change, but it was a general movement of students all around the world, especially in French country and colonies.

17:26Oh, so that spirit of rebellion, of revolt that was happening in, well, it was happening in Paris, in London, in America, but you was also being felt in Senegal as well. Yeah, and people used me just to bring people together, to listen to the song and then decide what we're going to do next day. How are we going to say no to this and agree to that? Throughout your career, I think you've mostly sung in the Senegalese language of Fulani, haven't you? Is that the language you grew up speaking? That's my mother and my father's language. That's the main language that we were singing and talking in my family, the Fulani.

18:02Baba, you now live in Dakar and you remain very rooted in the Fulani tradition. Your song, Dem Galam, can you tell me about that song? I was talking in this song about the importance of the languages. And this is very important in the Fulani's music, because every word that you use in the song has its cultural meaning. Dem Galam first came out on a cassette that was released only in Senegal. This song was so important politically. It was the first pop song to champion the rights of the Fulani people. And especially across the border in Mauritania, this was such an explosive issue that the authorities banned it and destroyed all the cassettes they could find.

18:45But they didn't get this one.

18:56Your mother must have been very proud knowing that you could do something very special with your voice. Your mother died, didn't she, in 1984? Yeah, she passed away. 1984. How did that affect you? Yeah, it was a shock because I went to Paris for many reasons, to investigate about how people do music professionally. Bored Mansour Sec with me, we started to play there and to get a little bit of money performing in front of the immigrants who was there in the foyers down there in Paris. every time I get money I send it to her and I was planning many things for her so it was a shock when I heard that she passed away because when I was leaving she was okay but it's life I have to dedicate to her the song I did, BAYO, in my first album the first song is dedicated to her

20:24You studied music, first of all, in Dakar, which is the capital of Senegal, and then you went to a conservatoire in Paris, which is why you were there. What were you studying? Was it a very formal training? You know why? Because when I went to Paris, I was supposed to go for three months, and then Montessori come to join me. We started to be very excited about playing music down there in France, and we spent three years. In these three years, some of my friends who are students down there, they say, since you are here, you can make profit of this time just to go to the conservatory. First I went to a small conservatory and then start to go to take some private lessons at the Conservatoire National, the party.

21:07But it was just to train myself for singing again, but also to learn about classical music, Western classical music, and to try to learn about how to write music more than we do in the conservatory in Dakar. So the plan was just when we come back to see all the songs that we find in West Africa, how we can write it down. We will be able to share it with someone who wants to learn about these songs. Oh, I see. So you actually went, you wanted to study to be able to record the music that you were picking up on your travels in Africa. Yes, exactly. And how we can share it with people by showing them all, only the writing on the field.

21:53like the classical music. I was wondering why African classical music was not written. And I said to myself, this will be really, really good for Africa if you can write these songs and to write the scales of these songs and how they work, how these women who sing, for example, the Yela, which is a traditional music from home, and suddenly they go from place on the song and make a transition, go to something else. We need to write this down because this is like, Western classical music. And that's the only way we can show to the rest of the world that Africa also have classical music as people respect the classical music in the West.

22:34But your ears were being opened to totally new music that I presume you had never heard before. What particularly struck you? What attracted me? There is a lot of instruments that are similar. For example, the harp and the choral.

22:57Some of the melodies that I think are connected to this classical music, how they sound sometimes really close to what I know about African classical music. And which composers in particular? I love Beethoven, I love Mozart. I didn't know that much about their life, but it's the music that was calling me.

23:33How did those studies in Paris affect the sort of music that you made when you returned? And the music that you're still making today, what is the legacy of that? The legacy of that is how to organise your business, the business of music. because we wanted to push forward the musical creativity that we learned to play music. We didn't want to be classical Western musicians or to take that or to be applied to ourselves. But it convinced us that what we were doing before traditional classical African music was right. Was right all along. Yes. We didn't need anything to add anything to that, you know, because we just wanted to have a proof that there is a classical Western music and there is also a classical African music.

24:23When you left Paris, you travelled around West Africa with Mansour Sek, who is a well-known musician. Where did you go? We went to nearly 300 places because there are many, many small villages along the river Senegal, in both sides from Mauritania to Senegal. And we nearly went to all these villages, We spent one week, sometimes 15 days. And when we finished the villages and the towns all along the river Senegal, we decided to go to Mali and to Burkina Faso, a little bit to Guinea. And we was heading to Ivory Coast. If it wasn't the passing away of my dad, I would have go much more deeper in the African continent.

25:10We was just going on an adventure. We were young. We was thinking music. We wanted to be known in these places, in these countries, and we wanted to meet all these musicians. This is just, we just went by adventure. And the other important thing is that when you were travelling and you were going on these musical journeys with Mansour Sekh, it wasn't just about taking music to communities, it was taking the music from those communities back with you. You were a musical collector. Yeah, the music came to us. Yeah, I think we were really blessed in these journeys to meet great musicians. I remember one time in Mali, in the market, we were ready to take the car to go to Ivory Coast.

25:55And one old man just came to us and said, are you musicians? We said, yes. I can't see, you have your guitars. He said, give me one guitar. I give him my guitar and he start to play two or three songs. And this is, you see how I'm playing it? So I give it to you. It's my gift. All this music came to us naturally. People wanted to give us things.

26:27You said earlier that your father didn't want you to become a musician. He wanted you to carry on your studies. Yeah. Did either of your parents see your success? Did they realize what you'd become? Yeah, my mother saw that and was so happy before I put this ban and was always saying people just let him go. One day maybe it's going to be the chance of our family or maybe our community and if I'm here till that time, it's good if I'm not here, people will get benefits from what he's going to bring back to us. I think they were very confident at one time. So you were taking all of these journeys as a young man.