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WOMADelaide - Seckou Keita Adelaide has been fortunate enough to host a number of virtuoso kora players in the last few years, principally the Malian cousins Toumani and Mamadou Diabate. Both draw a rich sound from the "West African harp", intricately crafted polyrhythms and melodies drawn from each of the instrument's 21 strings constantly interweaving and overlapping. Championing a slightly different style is Senegal's Seckou Keita, who will be here with his quintet for WOMADelaide in a matter of weeks. The silaba style that he uses, and which originates from Southern Senegal (as does the kora itself), is a more rhythmic than the Malian sowta, while the tunings also vary regionally and Keita's own instrument is slightly unusual in that it has 22 strings. Another, more obvious point of difference is his quintet, which brings together a number of international musicians including Italian bass player Davide Mantovani and Egyptian violinist Samy Bishai as well as a West African rhythm section, though he bridles at the term world music. "I wouldn't say world music, I would say the music for the world," he says with a laugh that suggests he's used this well-practised line many times before. " We all come from a different path, from a different tradition, but I believe our instruments are speaking the same language. So what I'm doing here, I'm extending the framework of the tradition." This means that while he's able to play some of his traditional repertoire fully, sometimes a little adaptation is needed to include the quartet; "the kora is a complex instrument. It can groove a melody and bassline accompanying at the same time, and if I played the fully traditional style of the kora there wouldn't be much space left for my bass player and the violin player!" The kora itself has probably existed for about five centuries, but the griot tradition of storytelling and praise singing, to which Keita belongs, existed even before that. He describes them as the journalists of their times and sees himself as continuing that role, though he casts himself as a chronicler of everyday life rather than a political commentator He describes the songs on his most recent album, last year's 'The Silimbo Passage' as "talking about the new generation... There's songs talking about betrayal, which is very direct, but also songs talking about true love and there's some songs that are dedications, prayers to my grandmother, who did a lot for me...What happens in life in general for my generation." Not that you can tell by listening to it, though - the music may be for the world, but the lyrics are specifically for Keita's "young African brothers," and he isn't about to begin singing in English to reach a larger audience. "I feel comfortable in my [Mandinka] language, and I like to send my messages through that because nowadays songs can be translated, but also the feeling of the playing and the composition can tell you if it's a sad or a really happy song. So the message is still for my generation - what the griots have done I'm doing in a modern way, moving forward but leaving the music to listen to, and I'm getting the words on top of that." Alexis Buxton-Collins |