Pull Out That Squash and Play Me Something: Adama Yalomba (feat. Piers Faccini) and "Djamakoyo"

The more I listen to music from Mali, the more I am convinced that music influences through time and space in ways that ultimately surprise us.

Why do I write that? One cannot listen to Malian music, for instance, without often hearing tunes that sound vaguely familiar, or styles that seem to have hit one's ears before. Then, it hits you. You are hearing some of the blues. Perhaps, you think, that this Malian player was influenced by listening to Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker sometime in the past. And you may be right. The world is getting smaller, and a lot of music passes around the globe and gets picked up in the most unlikeliest of places. While traveling in rural Bangladesh, for instance, I had to listen to the continual play of Aqua's Barbie Girl because my translator and guide loved the song so much. I still hate that song to this day. So, it is conceivable that a particular Malian singer was influenced by bluesmen from the United States. And that certainly doesn't disprove our theory that music influences through space.

But through time? What if you are listening to "traditional" Malian music, performed by Malian musicians who most likely have not had exposure to the blues and yet, their tunes still ring familiar and the styles still seem to fit? What if a band like Tinariwen, a Touareg group from Northern Mali that was formed in 1979 and that plays hard-driving bluesy electric guitars, emphatically denies that they ever heard the blues until they traveled in the United States for the first time in 2001? Then, we're talking about musical influences through time, and specifically African influences that traveled with slaves over in slave ships to the United States, and dispersed around the South as slaves were bought and sold. Eventually, those influences along with others picked up by generations of African Americans became a new American music, partly born in Africa and partly in the hot, steamy, oppressive South of the time.

I can go on and on about this. About how, in some of the Eastern European/Central European/Northern European songs, you find rhythms, songs and styles that are similar to Celtic music. Which all makes sense when you think about it because though not really related, most European cultures migrated from the east and it is not far-fetched to think that remnants of the Indo-European culture that birthed them stuck with them and echo their past one-ness throughout time.

It is finding these similarities or perceived similarities that drives the creativity of artists who create this "world music."

Today's randomly selected song is performed by Adama Yalomba, with some help from Piers Faccini. A Malian singer, instrumentalist and composer, Yalomba plays guitar, n'goni and dan. He learned to play the dan, an instrument with 6 strings on separate brackets mounted on a calabash squash gourd, from his father. He released his first cassette in Mali in 1995 and it was well-received. He made two other cassettes before releasing a full album in 2000. Since then, he has performed at the Festival au Désert and at WOMEX, has been featured on Putumayo Presents: African Blues and has toured internationally.

Piers Faccini is an English singer, painter and songwriter who first appeared on the London music scene with the band Charley Marlowe. He left the band in 2001 to pursue a solo career and released his first solo album in 2004. His followup in 2006 featured Ben Harper. He has released seven solo albums and has collaborated with musicians such as Rokia Traoré, Ben Harper, and Ibrahim Maalouf among others.

This song, Djamakoyo, is from Adama Yalomba's 2010 album Kassa, and can also be found on Putumayo Presents: African Blues.