New Video: Oakland's Orchestra Gold Returns with Funky and Forceful "Gende"

New Video: Oakland's Orchestra Gold Returns with Funky and Forceful "Gende" @OrchestraGold @pavementpr

Oakland-based psych outfit Orchestra Gold is rooted in the decade plus-long collaboration between Malian-born vocalist Mariam Diakite and Oakland-based guitarist Erich Huffaker. The duo first met in Bamako, Mali back in 2006. At the time, Huffaker was very busy: he was working for a nonprofit, studying djembe and dunun (drums) and immersing himself in the city’s burgeoning music scene when he had…

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Bamako, 1963 by William Klein

Playing the ngoni in Bamako, Mali via Mali Paw B Di (@mali_paw_b_di)

Seen at Bamako National Park, Mali by Nybe Ponzio

Couple dans une noix de kola, Bamako, circa 1940-1950, by Mountaga Dembélé

Untitled, 1949/51 © Seydou Keïta / SKPEAC / courtesy CAAC – The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva.

Rail Band — S-T (Mississippi)

“Marabayasa” is a groove that transcends time and geography, a monstrous monolith of funk that follows a pied piper’s sax through strutting, swaggering, stop-motion syncopation. The singer, Malian legend Mory Kanté leads an exuberant call and response, his fluid, note-bending salvo met with an echo so rhythmic, so hip swaying that it commands motion. The guitars are high and golden-toned, the piano insistent on the offbeats. When Kanté launches an instrumental break with a reverberating “waa-aa-aah,” you feel that you’re there in the heat of it, sweating and grinning.It’s the standout track on the Rail Band’s 1973 debut, a record of scorching power and body-tingling joy, performed train-side at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare. The Rail Band, you see, was the state-sponsored musical outfit of the Malian railroad.

That 1970s band included both Kanté and Salif Keita singing, Tidiani Koné on trumpet and saxophone, Djelimandy Tounkara on guitar and numerous drummers, merging traditional African sounds with mambo from Cuba, and funk, soul and jazz from America. They played five nights a week at a café in the rail station in Bamako to locals, expats, visiting businessmen and travelers. To judge by this album, it was a hell of a way to while away the hours until departure, much better than airport CNN feeds, so good that you might decide not to leave.

Consider, for instance, the fluid big-band wallop of “Moko Jolo,” this one with Koné on trumpet and sax both, both horns floating in a haze over an impacted, side-shifting beat. Percussion, on the kit and played by hand, takes the foreground in “Nantan,” setting a wandering rhythm for guitars to snake through, a shifting, phantasmagorical foundation for shadowed group vocals, the sound of distance, heat and longing baked in. It’s all very fine, intricate but physically stirring, full of skill but inflamed with feeling. Still after a while, you might find yourself turning to “Marabayasa” again, because it cooks so hard.

Jennifer Kelly

Bamako, Mali, 1973 Photographer: Hamidou Maiga

View of Bamako, Mali

French vintage postcard, mailed in 1908

Bamako, Mali

New Video: Les Amazones d'Afrique Share Bold and Swaggering "Flaws"

New Video: Les Amazones d'Afrique Share Bold and Swaggering "Flaws @amazonesafrique @sirenscallpr @RealWorldRec @kennedymuntanga @acedancemusic

Founded in Bamako back in 2014 by three renowned and acclaimed Malian artists and social change activists Mamani Keïta, Oumou Sangaré and Amadou & Mariam‘s Mariam Doumbia, Les Amazones d’Afrique is a All-Star collective of female, West African artists that embraces international voices through a meshing of heritage and new generation talent while advocating for the rights of women and girls…

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🇲🇱  Mali : l'ambassade de France à Bamako suspend la délivrance des visas

L'ambassade de France à Bamako, capitale du Mali, a suspendu la délivrance de visas. Le ministère malien des Affaires étrangères a été très surpris d’apprendre le classement du pays en zone rouge par la France. Le ministère français des Affaires étrangères avait, en effet, jugé la région « sous fortes tensions ». Thiambel Guimbayara, journaliste, directeur de publication de La Voix du Mali, a exprimé son opinion sur cette situation.

LOVE POWER PEACE - Malick Sidibe

Namian Sidibé - Souna

Passagers clandestins derrière le bus de Sotrama à Bamako. . . #documentaryphotography #visualstoryteller #visualstorytelling #johnkalapophotographer #johnkalapophotography #sotrama #apprentitchauffeur #portraitphotography #travelphotography #apprentit #africancontemporaryphotography #africancontemporaryartist #portraithumanity #bamako #Mali (à Bamako, Mali) https://www.instagram.com/p/CipR37OIoTC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=