Joe Strummer was on a roll just before his untimely death in
2002. He and his band, The Mescaleros,
had really hit their stride, playing music that perhaps actually deserved to be
branded ‘world music’, a rough mix of
influences and musical styles. A new
kind of folk music for the 21st century perhaps. In their last few live sets the band was
playing a new song Dakar Meantime. Sadly, or so I’ve heard, the band laid down the
music for the song in the studio, so it could be included on their next album but
Strummer never got to record the vocal track.
Consequently the song, which was
considered to be one of their best, did not appear on the posthumous
‘Streetcore’. I have never heard Dakar
Meantime, only read about it, but know in my bones that had I been at one of
those final joyous gigs, I would have been grinning from ear to ear. I don’t know whether Strummer ever visited
Dakar or whether the song was a product of his imagination garnered from the
Senegalese music he’d heard and what he’d read or been told. Whatever, it’s not hard imagining the aging
punk rocker enjoying the vibe of this city with all the different musics competing
for your attention as you step from taxi to street. A kora ringtone here, a transistor blasting
out some reggae there. Music is
everywhere in Senegal.
Our introduction to live music in Senegal is at the terribly
named, but prestigious Dakar restaurant/club, Just 4 U. Luckily we have been adopted by Khally who
has volunteered at Greenpeace’s Dakar office since its inception. Our guide cum guardian angel is a Muslim
rasta, his greying dreads usually tucked under a beret. Not always understanding each other,
perseverance and good humour means we now know the basics of each other’s lives. Khally is one of seven siblings and born in
Casamance in the south of Senegal. At age
three he came to Dakar where he was brought up by his grandmother. His father died when he was 12. He has a younger brother who is good at
computers and lives in the US and although Khally has called him on occasion,
the brother doesn’t call back. From what
we can gather Khally does various things to get by – he is somewhat vague here
– but they include doing some painting and decorating and has produced batiks
for the December festival. His life, I
suspect, has been a struggle and his clear devotion to Greenpeace is due in
part because it gives him a real sense of belonging.
As is so often the way with such characters, Khally himself
is clearly well known around town, as is evident from all the non-stop handshaking
and stopping on every other street corner to exchange greetings. On
telling him about our conversation with Fally Sene Son, a 22 year old
sous-verre (reverse glass painting) artist who has a small exhibition of his work
at the Institut Francais, Khally immediately says he knows him. He also adds that if we want to buy a piece of
his work we will get a much better rate if we go through him. Having witnessed his tenacious negotiating
for a sept place taxi ride in the Garage Pompier (the central gathering place
for fixing a ride out of town in a battered Peugot 504 that can take seven
passengers) I have every reason to believe him.
So on Saturday night, we met with Khally at our hotel
reception, (he lives only a few hundred meters away), and venture into the
night. Having negotiated a fare, a mere
fraction of what we might have managed, we stare out at the busy streets that
are the inspiration for Fally’s work.
Fally portrays his district in a particularly vivid fashion, having
developed his own unique style of sous-verre.
His technique involves as much collage as painting, as the work incorporates
all sorts of found materials. Peopled by
figures cut out from photographs or magazines, his images are more real than
any photo, distilling the essence of the city in all its vibrancy and squalor.
On the way to the venue, Khally points out the state
hospital, a big private school and the medina market. Among other things, I am surprised to see that
an enormous department stall is named Orca and sports a fine picture of a
killer whale painted on one of its walls.
We are among the first to arrive at the club at around 9pm and
so secure a table close to the stage. It is a bit too dark to read the menu
properly, so Khally uses his mobile as a torch.
We notice thiof on the menu, a fish too expensive now for most
Senegalese to buy, and end up opting for chicken and chips. To begin with, there is quite a large
proportion of fellow Europeans and Americans dotted at the tables eating but,
as the evening progresses, the club fills up with more Senegalese. Raoul had pointed
out to me a few days earlier that Senegalese people eat late, stay up late and
rise early. At Just 4 U, the headline
band does not come on before midnight.
The Just 4 U stage is wedged into a corner of the dining
area and on the night we visit is cramped with equipment. However its small size has not stopped the
big stars of the Senegal music scene from playing the club. From Orchestra Baobab to Carlo D, Baaba Maal
to Youssou N’Dour (now Senegal’s Minister for Tourism), all the greats have
played ,and still play, the club. The
club is also important in helping build the reputations of new artists – a
support slot for a big name providing
access to a wide and influential audience. When we arrived we had no idea who
was on the bill, but there was never any doubt that we were in for anything
other than a special night.
As it turned out for us, it was the first group on that
provided the magic. Kham Kham is a four
piece group comprising of a vocalist, a kora player, a guitarist and a
percussionist. The kora is a magical
instrument for me, for somehow once the notes are pouring out of a kora, I lose
all sense of time. The young instrumentalist
in Kham Kham is as wonderful a player and to these non-expert ears the equal as
such acknowledged masters as Toumani Diabate and Jali Musa Jawara, who I have been lucky enough to hear at
concerts in the UK. Wearing a baseball
cap backwards, Kham Kham’s kora player pulled off the clever trick of sounding
as though he were playing three separate stringed instruments
simultaneously, Many of Kham Kham’s
songs are built on a simple repeating chord progression provided by the
guitarist and over these the kora player adds endlessly beautiful melodic embellishments - cascading scales of notes that seem to go on for ever while he
plucks simple bass figure with his other hand.
Add to this a singer with a beautiful yearning voice and a subtle patter
of percussion and the ensemble is able to produce music as rich as any
orchestra. ‘They are born to it’, Khally
said at one point, nodding sagely. While much of their repertoire is
comparatively gentle, there are occasional crescendos where the kora player is
plucking the strings ferociously, hammering out a riff with all the intensity
of a rock guitarist, his face scrunched up in concentration and then breaking
into a smile when he trades glances with the percussionist. Later as we are heading home Stas informs me
that Kham Kham played for three hours or so and I don’t really believe her, it
didn’t seem that long at all.
Once Kham Kham had finished, the musicians that make up
Aziouza squeezed onto the stage. Perched by the drummer is the bassist and in front of him
are two keyboard players, one with a Yamaha DX7, the digital synthesizer that
was so ubiquitous in the 1980s. To their
right are a percussionist and a wiry young guitarist. Earlier in the evening the guitarist had
joined Kham Kham for one song at the invitation of the group’s percussionist.
He had added electric guitar lines that mimicked and complemented those of the
kora player. His tone and sensitivity
were immediately evident, occasionally adding a bluesy shading but never riding
roughshod over the acoustic instruments.
I’d been impressed and was looking forward to hearing more of the same
from his black Stratocaster. In front of
this backline were four microphone stands.
One of the keyboard
players struck some fat sounding chords and the band kicked in and played an
instrumental to warm up. It was then
that the star of the evening appeared, together with two backing vocalists and
a sabar player. Dressed in a pink,
mauve and gold dress and sporting a magnificent Afro hair do, the singer channelled what can
only be described by this fashionista as a ‘way-out Afro-Barbarella’ look,
which was finished off with a pair of giant star earrings.
The show that followed, what we saw of it for we left at two
a.m. long before the end, was a total contrast in style to the preceding set
from Kham Kham. Aziouza perform popular songs from all around West
Africa in a cabaret fashion with lots of spoken introductions and requests to
the audience to join in and sing on the choruses and clap specific
rhythms. The spectacle was magnified
when two women appeared in front of the stage dancing with an energy that can
only be described as ferocious, somehow both exhilarating and somewhat
intimidating. Each dancer spurred the
other on to greater heights and when their showcase spots finished they broke
into huge gleaming smiles.
Several songs in and another snazzily dressed
woman joins the performers on stage. She
is carrying a microphone, not to sing but to interview the star for a programme
which I gather is called ‘Dakar never sleeps’ or words to that meaning. Like late night TV presenters worldwide, she
spouted a smiling stream of hyperbole by way of introduction and then conducted
a short interview with the singer and conducted a flirtatious exchange with the
tall and handsome sabar player. The next
number involved inviting members of their audience to come up individually and
dance to the rapid rhythms struck out by the sabar player. Several gamely did, but we were flagging and
so paid the bill and picked our way out through the crowded tables and into the
warm night. I hadn’t expected to see a
supper-club band but perhaps I should have for Just 4 U is exactly that - a
supper club complete with chicken and chips!
Richard Dakar, October 2012
