African Signals: Habib Koite & Bamada with "Tere"

One of the things that has surprised me in my education into world music is the place that Senegal and Mali occupy presently in the music coming out of Africa. Partially, my surprise comes from my recent efforts to compile a directory of the world music that I have (these efforts have actually made these daily random tunes possible). When I catalog music from Africa, it is actually a surprise if the music isn't from Senegal or Mali or related to those countries in some way. Actually, that's not completely true - Algeria also has a thriving music scene (though it comes across as more Arabic/Middle Eastern music than what I would regard as African music), as does South Africa. And, in the 70s Nigeria and Ghana were the African music powerhouses. But Mali in particular seems to have a huge variety and depth of music, from the desert nomad traditions in the north of the country to the more African music traditions of the south. I just find myself typing Mali a lot. And Senegal's music tradition is also strong - a lot of this has to do with Youssou N'Dour but there are other fine musicians coming out of Senegal as well.

One musician that straddles both countries is Habib Koite. Koite is a Senegalese singer, guitarist and songwriter based in Mali whose band, Bamada, is a West African supergroup made up of many well-known musicians. Koite tunes his guitar to a pentatonic scale and plays it on open strings, much like the one would play the African ngoni. His music can be reminiscent of both blues and flamenco, two styles he has picked up in his musical career. He also has an intimate and relaxed vocal style that makes his music sound calm and even moody. Born to musician parents, he learned how to play by watching and listening. After graduation from the Bamako Institute of the Arts, he formed Bamada in 1988. He began touring outside of Africa in 1994, and his music got a huge boost when three of his songs were included with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. He has released eight albums - his latest just came out in 2014. This song, Tere, is from his 2001 CD Baro.