Monday, October 30, 2006

West African Music 101

My goal here was to compile a good list of West African musicians and give you an idea of what they're about. Allmusic.com supplied me with most of my information. Most of these became popular between the 60's - 90's. I don't have many newer musicians here because they take a while to break out, or they at least take a while to break out on the internet. Also, much of the music scene in Africa is being dilluted by MTV/BET, so much of the newer music lacks any sort of African identity that it once had. But there is definitely still some great new stuff. About half are recommendations and half are ones I've found on my own. Some I've heard and some I've not. I'm going to try to continuously update this blog entry, so please check back if you're interested in West African music.

I'm reluctantly building a decent tape collection because tapes are the most readily available music format here. However, you can find most of these on CD.

Here's a few good introductory musicians. They're big in American, but ironically, no one has heard of them here:

The Refugee Allstars - Sierra Leone - Refugees that fled to Guinea. Very big in the U.S. right now. They're doing a good sized tour there. Check their tour schedule. Someone recently made an award winning documentary about them. Played at Bonnaroo 2006. I just heard they're opening for Aerosmith for some reason. At least they'll get deserved attention.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - South Africa - Became popular after collaberating with Paul Simon on his "Graceland" album. African harmony at it's best.

Amadou et Mariam - Mali - Big in Europe and America. Good Intro to African Music. Shorter songs, catchy verses, and to the point. Played at Bonnaroo 2006.

Here's a bunch more. Some I have information on, and some I don't. There are some gems here:

*Baaba Mal - Senegal - Very Popular musician. Combines traditional Fula music with jazz, blues, and pop.

*Daara J - Senegalese Wolof Hip-Hop. Combines reggae, funk, and Cuban music.

*Salif Keita - Mali - combines African, jazz, funk, Europop, and R&B influences. In a review of an album, Rolling Stone wrote, "Keita's voice is remarkable in itself. It's high, bracing purity is heightened by a unique phrasing that combines full-tilt warrior strength, the sensual lilt of the Brazilian samba and Islamic prayer calls." My personal favorite along with Ali Farka Toure.

*Mory Kante - Guinea - Combines old with the new. Played in The Rail Band until rivalry with Salif Keita forced him to quit. Very good at the Kora.

Amadou Bansang Jobarteh - The Gambia - According to Rootsworld, Jobarteh's "music is at once ancient and new, praising the heroes and benefactors of his home and family, telling the history of his people, and doing it within a series of structures that leave room for individual expression through improvisation."

Foday Musa Suso - The Gambia - "Rooted in the meditative folk traditions of his native Gambia, but he also collaborated with similarly omnivorous Western musicians including Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, and Philip Glass to fuse West African music with classical minimalism, free jazz, and avant funk." -allmusic.com

*Ali Farka Toure - Mali - Enjoyed much international acclaim during his life. Described as the African "John Lee Hooker" bluesman. Ethnic Fusion/African Folk. Amazing.

Toumani Diabate - Mali - "A master of the kora (21-string West African harp), Toumani Diabaté has brought the traditional music of his native Mali to the attention of an international audience with a series of well-received solo albums and some unlikely, but acclaimed, collaborations." -allmusic.com

*Sekou "Diamond Fingers" Diabate - Guinea - "Diamond Fingers" Diabate is the virtuoso lead guitarist for Bembeya Jazz.

Bembeya Jazz International - Guinea - "Specializing in modern arrangements of Manding classic tunes"

Le Raam Daan - Senegal

Super Diamono - Senegal

*The Rail Band - Mali - Mory Kante and Salif Keita combined early in their careers

*Prince Nico Mbarga - Nigeria - His song "Sweet Mother" was voted the #1 African Song. An oldie but a goodie.

*Manu Dibango - Cameroon

Hi-Life International - Ghana

Ashanti Brothers - Ghana

Nana Ampadu & the African Brothers - Ghana

The City Boys - Ghana

Genesis Gospel Singers - Ghana

Israel Cole - Sierra Leone

Sabannoh 75 - Sierra Leone

Daddy Saj - Sierra Leone - Sierra Leone's current anti-corruption crusader. Often called the "Lyrical Warrior." He even went to jail for a while for releasing an anti-government song called "Corruption." Featured on BBC recently.

Bunny Mac - Sierra Leone

*Oumou Sangare - Mali - "She received much of her attention for writing and singing lyrics that specifically addressed concerns of women in modern West African society, such as the conflict between marriage and personal freedom; not a shocking subject in the Western world, perhaps, but a pioneering one for the popular music of the region." -allmusic.com

*Ismaël Lô - Senegal - "With his smooth multi-textured voice and low-key folky style, he and his 12-piece band play strong, complex, percussion-laden mbalax songs that discuss important topics in Senegal ranging from racism and respect to immigration." -allmusic.com

*Youssou N'Dour - Senegal - According to Rolling Stone, "If any third world performer has a real shot at the sort of universal popularity last enjoyed by Bob Marley, it's Youssou, a singer with a voice so extraordinary that the history of Africa seems locked inside it." A rather bold statement in my opinion, but he's enjoyable.

*Barry Thianguel - Guinea - This is the band I went to in my last post. Apparently, their name gets around The Gambia like the telephone game. I've heard everything from Jango Bari to Barry Changel.


*Denotes I've heard them and I recommend them.


Feel free to make any corrections or additions by posting them.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Happy Ramakormasween Elm Street



Ramadan and Koriteh have come and gone, which I can only describe as a combination of Christmas, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. The latter is possibly an exaggeration, but the combination of Lariam (anti-malarial drug with vivid-dream side effects) dreams and 30+ African singers/chanters outside my hut at 4 A.M. was frightening. I’m not sure what the significance of all if it was, but I’m thinking maybe they were singing because Ramadan was coming to an end. Had I known that was the case, I might have joined them in rejoicing because now I can buy food from street vendors again that were closed during the month of fasting. It all officially came to an end on Monday after a big prayer ceremony (pictured). Monday night was a nightmarish scene in itself because hundreds of kids were rampant in the streets asking me for money. It’s part of some trick-or-treat-like tradition, but some of the kids looked a little too old to be trick-or-treating in my opinion. In addition to being able to eat without hiding in a corner, I can now drum on my djembe again. I met another djembe player who knows a few other local musicians and we're going to try to get together at some point. I talked to one of the bar owners here and he said that we could possibly start playing there once every few weeks or so.

Many businesses here are missing out on a lot of income that could be made. Just simple things like having a better selection of food, more products, or having live music every now and then would boost their profits dramatically. And it's not that they can't afford it. Sometimes they just don't see it and sometimes they see it but would just rather work less than make more money. Simple things like having an entire fruit stand instead of going to the watermelon seller, then the mango seller, and then the banana seller. In the future, I would like to sit down with a few business owners and try to give them a few ideas, but we'll see what happens. Money doesn't necessarily motivate many people here. I would also love to try to develope a live music scene here. There's musicians here and there's a couple different venues, but it seems no one takes any initiative to organize any sort of regular schedule. Every now and then a musician will just show up and play, which is great and everything, but not everyone knows about it. The next day everyone will say "well I would have gone had I known about it." So there's a bit of a promotion and advertisement problem also. Oh well, baby steps.

Speaking of which, I saw an amazing band from Guinea last night called Jango Bari (pictured) or something like that. I haven't been able to track them down anywhere on the internet yet, but I might have their name wrong. They had a drummer, a djembe player, a percussionist, 2 guitarists, and a bassist. I would describe them as very high energy, percussion driven African music with surf guitar tones with delay, and a lot of West African-Jazz thrown in. Guinea is well known for their musical talent, and now I know why. The energy still hasn't worn off of me from last night. The only thing missing was a decent P.A. set up. Unfortunately, I think I gave them false hope because I think they thought I was some talent agent or press photographer from the U.S. They sent a transaltor over to me twice to ask what my name was and where I was from. In either case, they told me they were happy that I was there. At one point the manager or promoter of the event came up to me with his wireless microphone and gave his thanks and told me I was welcomed there in Fula. At least that's what someone told me he said.. in Wolof. It was a little uncomfortable having a couple hundred staring at me waiting for me to say something. My Fula vocabulary maybe consists of 15 words.. so all I said was "jarama (thank you)."

*Photo Album Update: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52546085@N00/

Coming Soon: Note Worthy Statistics and Music of West Africa

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I'm gonna getcha!

There is a fear of white people here among some of the children. It is not uncommon for children in Africa (or even the U.S. for that matter) to cringe in fright at the sight of me. This morning I was riding my bike to school and a little boy probably around 7 saw me and was absolutely terrified and began running. He kept running and looking back, running faster and looking back. I probably escalated the situation by letting out a sinister laugh and slightly changing my direction toward him. He eventually caught up with his friends and his fear dissipated.

This reminded me of a story one of the volunteers here told me. He is currently on his 3rd Peace Corps assignment. In addition to The Gambia, he's been in Niger and Kenya. He was posted in a very remote area of Niger where it wasn't uncommon for someone to have never seen a white person before. He was on a jog one day when a kid began running away from him screaming. He soon approached a group of villagers holding clubs and machettes. He didn't think much of it at the time, but he later found out that those people thought he was the Devil and they planned on killing him. Fortunately for him, one of the villagers recognized him and said to the other villagers "Oh, that's not the Devil. That's just a new teacher here." He moved to another village after that incident and the next village thought he looked like Jesus because he had long straight hair.

*Update/Clarification: The majority of children here come running and screaming "Toubab! Toubab! (white person)" like you're Blinky the Clown when they see you.. not cry. For better or for worse because of some European tourists throwing out candy and soccer balls when they come through some of the villages.

Friday, October 13, 2006

The Flood Gates Have Opened


Good news! I got internet set up at the school yesterday, so now I will have internet in my office/server room/closet. More importantly, I guess, the students and teachers will have internet access for educational purposes. I set up a proxy server so it can share the connection with other computers, but we have very limited bandwidth to work with. We have a 230 Kbps connection which is really fast for this area, but that speed drastically diminishes with each computer that uses the proxy server. I'll probably only share the line with maybe 4-5 other computers at most.

I could have had the internet working a few days ago, but I refused to believe that the Basse area had a wireless MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) without me knowing. Some mysterious man I had never seen before brought a wireless ISDN modem here a few days ago, and said "Plug this in. This will give you internet." I was like "Uhh...no it won't.. idiot.. maybe in China it would give you internet.. go away.. weirdo.. " Well, out of boredom I found the drivers for it and installed it, and it actually worked. It was baffling. Just as mysteriously as the man with the modem appeared, the internet began working. Some U.S. cities are just now getting MAN's, so I was a tad bit surprised. Having wireless MAN's here makes a lot more sense because the country has no copper or fiber infrastructure anyways. And the country is really flat for the most part, so signals can travel with more ease.

Now the problem is allocating enough internet time to 1000 students and 25 teachers. We're probably going to limit it to Grade 12 students only, and the teachers can use it 1 night a week. It's been a mob scene here today. All the students know the internet is working, and they all want to use it. The same goes for the teachers. I don't even know if I'm safe here right now. They've basically been pressing their faces against the windows looking in the computer lab today. They are eager to get in touch with the rest of the world. Many of them see the internet as their ticket to move to the U.S. or Europe. Others just want to go to their favourite football team's website. I'm hoping there are some that want to use it to actually learn something, and there seems to be.

This week was the first week that I had the students using the computers. This week is the introduction to the keyboard, and next week will be the introduction to the mouse. I had each of them type their names, 2 sentences, and 2 questions. Most of the sentences or questions they wrote said something like "Please take me to America with you," or "I want to use the internet," or "Will you teach me to write e-mails?", or "I want to live with my brother in Europe." It's difficult to make sure everyone is getting a chance to use the computer when there's sometimes 5 students on 1 computer and 3 chairs.

Here's some new pictures of where I live and work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52546085@N00/

and my older ones..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/97939559@N00/

Here's my host brothers and sisters dancing and playing on my new djembe and a view of Basse from a hill:

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

So this is fasting...



I'm not too sure how well my host family speaks for the rest of the Muslim Gambian population, but we've been eating quite well during this month of fasting. At night at least. Last night we ate fresh dates, oranges, watermelon, guava (I think), and bananas; followed by freshly killed and plucked chicken and spicy benachin (fried rice). I might not have electricity and running water during most of the day, but my compound is quite lavish with it's variety of mango, orange, guava (I think), and banana trees (pictured). I don't know what some of things growing in our compound are called in English, but they're good to eat. My host sisters also make this amazing homemade juice out of those fruits.

I was recently introduced to these Mauritanian shopkeepers that I bought some fabric from to have some clothes made. They had another PCV and I over for dinner the other night. They have a very nice apartment building, and they lay their mats out at night on top of the roof that overlooks the city to eat, relax, and talk. Refer to the photo. Evidentally, they don't take having guests too lightly because they slaughtered a sheep for us to eat. They even let us gnaw on the bones and slurp them dry when everything else was finished. They like me because they think I look Mauritanian for some reason. I'm not sure if he was serious or not, but the second night I went there one of the men told me he was going to name his next born child after me (Abdoulie, my Gambian name). I think the baby is due in a few months. He's pictured on the far right. One of my Mauritanian friends that lives there said he has around 15 horses and a few camels in Mauritania I could go ride on. He said I could even take a colt back to American with me since he has so many.

So I'm thinking there must be an ancient Mauritanian prophecy that foretold my arrival.. a Mauritanian looking man shall arrive from the west and you shall feed him well, give him livestock, and name your next child after him, and then he will lead you to Mecca. Actually I think they just want to learn English better. They're good people and pretty hilarious. I put a few pictures up of the school and Basse. Check them out.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Can anyone in here understand what I'm saying?

Today the 2nd week of classes began. They have been going fairly well for the most part. The biggest challenge in teaching so far has been making sure the students are understanding what I'm saying. I try to speak very slow and clear, but I still think much is being lost with my American accent. It's also difficult to understand what the students are saying sometimes. I'm getting used to the English here though. If I start making no sense on these blog entries, it's probably because my English is slowly degenerating. All the schools here teach in English. The level of understanding on the part of the students differs greatly. Some know English very well and some barely know any, which can make school a little difficult. As far as grading goes, 40% is passing and many students still fail.

Going into this I had a few doubts about teaching computers in a developing country. I wasn't sure how necessary IT/computer education was, and I wasn't sure how much desire the host country nationals would have to learn computing. Fortunately, most of those doubts have been put to rest. Most of the students' faces glow with excitement each time they sit in front of a computer. I've also had several adults approach me about getting a night class started for more advanced topics. The need in the country for skilled computer users is surprisingly high.

It's been frustrating trying to decide what I should teach and what I should leave out. I gave a pretest last week to to assess the students' computer knowledge and experience. The results were about what I expected; some know a lot and some know absolutely nothing. This complicates teaching greatly. I want the students that know a great deal to progress more, but I must also make sure the ones that know nothing will begin to understand computing. It's a delicate balance. On the pretest, I asked the question "What is the internet?" Answers differed from "A worldwide network of computers that share and distribute information" to "The brain of the monitor." I think I'm going to leave out many concepts and definitions and just give them a more of a chance to use and navigate around on the computers. In their lives, most of the grade 11 students have used computers for a total of 2 hours. There's so many prerequisites I wish the students had. As of right now, the students have 2 years (grade 11 and grade 12) to learn as much about computers as they can. It would probably take 2 years for them just to become decent typers. The problem is they need to be introduced to computers sooner, so they can develope more advanced skills in grades 11 and 12. The upper basic schools (grades 7-9) even have computer labs here, but they aren't being used enough. I'm going to visit the upper basic schools here soon to see what can be done to remedy that. In the future, I would like to certain students here at the high school be able to choose to take a more computer-orientated education path. The principal here is extremely easy to work with and we see eye to eye with most things.

Luckily, I have my more nerdy IT projects to work on when I get frustrated with teaching. This week I'll be meeting with the Regional Education Director to discuss the network and database I'll be implementing in their office. I'll be doing some training there also so they know what they're doing with it. The lab setup at the high school is actually pretty nice. I have Windows 2000 Server running on an IBM eServer with about other 25 computers. The principal is even open to the idea of networking the offices to the lab. Hopefully, we'll be getting internet in the lab in the next couple weeks. We had our first staff meeting on Saturday. One of the most brutal things in all of the Gambia is meetings. The meeting went from 11 am to 4 pm nonstop, and they're even fasting (when the sun is up) this month for Ramadan! No water and no food. I've heard that by the end of the month some people will start falling asleep in mid-sentence in the middle of meetings.

I had a really good free dinner last week with an Embassy official, the British Deputy High Commissioner, and a couple other British women that are in the foreign service. They were in town for monitoring the voting for the election. They were very nice people. They gave me a bunch of rugby equipment that was donated by the UK Rugby Association, so I'll be introducing rugby to the high school. Hopefully no one will die. I don't even know all of the rules, but they also gave me 10 official rulebooks so I'll read up. By the way, the election ended without a hitch. No riots or coup's or anything like that. However, a few weeks ago some volunteers were evacuated from near the southern Senegal border. There's been a civil war going on in southern Senegal for a while now. Apparently, you can hear mortar fire at a couple of the volunteers' sites. They weren't evacuated because of that though. They're actually completely safe as far as the fighting is going, it never crosses the border. The problem is the rebels have taken over some of the villages in Senegal because they don't think the Senegalese army will bomb the villages, so thousands of refugees have fled into The Gambia, and that's where the issue of safety is for the volunteers: the stranger refugees that have fled into their villages. But I guess everything is fine now and they're back at their sites.