Ali Farke Toure and me: what the rich Malian musical tradition can teach us all
Five years ago, al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar Dine raged a systematic campaign to destroy Mali’s cultural heritage. When they occupied the northern two thirds of this West African country, their reign of cultural destruction not only targeted ancient shrines and historical artefacts in Timbuktu, but the extremists also sought to suppress Mali’s rich and important musical traditions. The people’s music was banned, musicians were punished, instruments were burned. By putting music on the front line, Ansar Dine tried to crush the Malian’s spirit and collective consciousness.
You see in Mali, music is inherent to its people’s identity, it’s infused into the country’s roots, its soil; it runs through Malians veins. The country’s griot tradition — where singers were story-tellers who recounted history and made social comment — dates back centuries, and with independence in 1960 music was the force that bonded the nation over the Arabic and African worlds. And beyond the continent, Malian blues can be traced from Africa to the Americas and the slave route; it’s “the DNA of the blues” as Martin Scorcese put it. Music is a source of Malian unity, a force which al Queda sought to divide.
Out of this musical land, has sprung so many talented artists, from Amadou and Mariam to Toumani Diabate and beyond; the list is rich and their musical roots deep. Now I do not profess to be an expert on music; what I do know, is how music and particularly one musician, has shaped me; his name was Ali Farka Toure.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where music was part of the fabric of the building, where there were stacks of vinyl and stereos in every shared room…. from the Stones to Cream to Janis Joplin, and beyond. My mum, and then my sister and I liked to play it all. Loud, soft, to dance to, to accompany a road trip, or simply to sit with; music was the backdrop to my upbringing by an hippy, single, adventure-loving and entrepreneurial mum. So when a pan pipe band approached her at a Liverpudlian’s friends’ Bolivian wedding back in the 80s about setting up a UK gig, her career was mapped out: impresario to Scotland’s foremost world music agency. It was a wild, not always profitable, but always fun ride which led her to work with Ali Farka and a deep appreciation of and professional engagement with a number of West African musicians.
I grew up with late night jamming sessions, evenings dancing at gigs rather than in front of the telly, earning pocket money collecting tickets and ironing shirts for bands for spare change. But amongst the chaos, the fun, the rhythms, Ali stood out. He was a giant of a man: warm, loving, expressive, with a fierce power that radiated across cultural boundaries and language differences. I have since discovered that ‘Farka’ was a nickname meaning donkey…Ali was the 10th of 9 children, the other 9 died. Ali was a survivor in a tough land where infant mortality is frighteningly high, he endured a childhood which involved beatings and hard graft. Ali was resilient, and through the midst of the daily grind, music was his solace. He fought for it, fashioning his own little tin guitar of out rubbish.
So Ali, like Malians during the recent occupation, have had to fight for their music.
And in Mali music is part of the fabric of community, of life; and live music often brings people together. I observed this on a trip to Senegal and Mali with my mum when I was 21. It was a musical pilgrimage of sorts, we visited musicians along the route, went to gigs, we danced — but the final destination was always Ali’s compound in Niafunke, just outside of Timbuktu up the river Niger, where we were the privileged and deeply honoured guests.
On our west African journey I saw countries where people were so much freer about musical expression than ours. The kids in Senegal seemed to dance rather than run up the road, music and frenetic dancing brought communities together at night. Music is lived, experienced, alive in West Africa. Malian soulful melodies might not spark such energetic dancing as in neighbouring Senegal, but there’s a still observation and deep expression when this music is played. Music is felt, there’s a communal feeling; a soul’s connection. I still feel that too when I listen to Ali Farka’s desert blues.
And music can be created from anything in Mali: from an old tin drum or a little stick. I vividly remember the powerful sound Ali spontaneously conjured from a little matchbox drum he created in the little cafe in Niafunke we’d sit in with him. Now that’s true creativity and uninhibited musicianship.
I contrast my experience of West Africa to the UK, where we too have rich musical traditions and some of the very best bands of all time. I see new musicians working hard to use every means to make great music, to collaborate to get their music out there in an industry which has been disrupted by digital. More people are going to gigs and festivals and people have access to more music than ever. Sonos, Youtube, Deezer are available on all our devices, all the time; we don’t have to fight for access to music. This is fantastic, but I also wonder how often we lock ourselves in our heads to experience music; it’s mostly a private experience for us. Music which can uplift, soothe the soul, inspire or just make you want to move is less likely to be a collective experience here.
What if we could really appreciate our access to music and make it a bigger part of our every day lives? Now I respect silence, time to be alone with our thoughts, time to appreciate nature, perhaps to meditate. But we’re such an individualistic society that this right of the individual to be alone, to have quiet, I think is stopping us using music enough to connect us in prosaic ways. Gigs can be really expensive. What if we could use music to to move us, to drive shared experiences in a simpler way? With funding cuts for creative school subjects happening now in the UK, music is being pushed out as a subject in it’s own right; as a counter to that can we incorporate the experience of music into school more? Can we squeeze it back into daily life for our kids? Can we have musical instruments at hand at break time? Perhaps a recycled can drum in the playground? Can we use music to shift the mood for kids who need a little down time? And can we do that at workplaces, public spaces, hospitals and hospices too? Research has shown that live music helps to relieve pain, anxiety and depression; so let’s use it as a force for good in our stressed out, fragmented public life.
In the fight for attention, smart-phones, screens and deeply personalised experiences are winning. Studies show that that’s leading to greater isolation and if music is only heard alone, it can be positive but surely it’s not only meant to be enjoyed by oneself? Let’s unlock music again from the private or elitist, or one off experience, and give it some oxygen. Let’s rediscover music as a means of connection to our shared history, and also to root us in the moment. Music helped me, helps us all decode and make sense of the world, of our feelings; it’s part of what makes us human, and as humans we are meant to share.
Music should be part of our collective experiences, and it doesn’t have to be a programme of musical tuition, a huge event, expensive lessons or something which relies on performance skills. This is not about turning us our kids into the next x-factor hopefuls. It can start with something as simple as mum used to do; turn on some great, varied music at home or in the car. So let’s all try something small and reframe the way we experience music in our daily lives; try out some different tracks over dinner, a little family disco on a Friday night; but let’s appreciate our amazing access to music, it’s a gift. Give yourself more headspace, connect; turn off the screens, and turn on the tunes.
