Concerts are not what they used to be: in an attempt to break the mould of conventional performance styles, promoters and artists are increasingly turning to explanatory introductions, visual aids and other means of drawing the audience in, as if music alone could not work the crowd. The Senegalese singing star Baaba Maal is touring with the journalist and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, and their show combines relaxed but clearly scripted conversation with stunning songs from Maal’s Fulani repertoire.
Advertised as Tales from the Sahel, and an exploration of “how such mythological tales have led to the inspiration that is modern Africa”, the show was nothing of the kind. Disappointing if you turned up expecting a combination of traditional storytelling and song, but a polished and enjoyable show for those who came without expectations. The format was more TV chat show than African village banter, although Maal alluded to the way in which African villagers gather round to gossip, philosophise and sing, at a pace which we have all but forgotten, caught up as we are in the frenzy of texting, emailing and social networks.
Kwei-Armah could be a great TV host – he is bright, charismatic and witty, in a populist kind of way. And the conversation which fills the first half of the interval-less 90-minute show is fascinating but a little too linear. There is little of the rhythmic call and response and wordplay that would characterise an African exchange, a kind of verbal cross-riffing which takes your breath away and in which the enjoyment of form is as important as the content. Kwei-Armah and Maal have a mission and that is to provide infotainment for the audience.
This is very well done and Maal talks vividly of life in Podor, his hometown in the far north of Senegal, a place in which many different cultural currents collide, and the discovery of his vocal vocation and evolution as an artist who had to cut his ties with the village. When Kwei-Armah asks Baaba Maal to give some musical examples, the hall explodes with sound, as the singer fills the space with his unique and heartwarming voice. There is time for questions – and not just a token few. Baaba Maal’s answers stray from the point and have the feel of rehearsed spiels rather than a true engagement with the audience’s curiosity.
Kwei-Armah eventually leaves the stage, and Baaba Maal, lightly picking an acoustic guitar, is joined by two young percussionists – Jim Palmer and Mamadou Sarr – whose accompaniment mixes subtle background fill with subtly placed beat-breaking interventions. Senegal has given the world some remarkable voices, all drawing from both Islamic and Manding influences: Youssou N’Dour, with his rich high-octane delivery and Thionne Seck with his suave and honey-toned coolness. Baaba Maal has a “head voice”, a nasal quality which pleases rather than grates. All of them sing from the heart and have a capacity to move audiences to a near-ecstatic state.
Baaba Maal most often tours with a supercharged band, a configuration that plays to his star quality but rarely gives space for the sensitivity which he displayed on Djam Leelii, his first and now legendary album (originally a cassette) with the blind guitarist Mansour Seck. On this tour, we get Baaba Maal stripped down, which is not Baaba Maal-lite, but an intimate display of his vocal range, perfect sense of timing and consummate musicianship. The trio format allows the audience to enjoy the smallest detail of the interaction that enlivens the music as well as presenting Baaba Maal as himself rather than superstar. There is, no doubt, something to be said for the conversation that precedes the music, as this has given the audience a more rounded view of the man as well as the musician.
The show ends with some slow-burning numbers: Baaba Maal trading licks with the two percussionists and mesmerising the audience with almost Sufi-style cycles of vocal repetition. There is a message to many of his songs – about the place of women, the need for mass education in Africa and the potentially bright future of the continent. This is typical of African song – a genre in which ethics are never separated from entertainment. The joy of syncopation that underlies much of the music, as the three musicians interact, carries a corresponding message, evoking as it does the pleasure and creativity which arises out of playful communication between separate but linked individuals.
It is a pity though that such a statement of African-style musical democracy should end, in the now formulaic finale to so many world-music concerts, with the whole audience hand-clapping in regimented unison, reminiscent of the political rally rather than the fluid togetherness of an African village gathering.
Buy tickets for Baaba Maal at the London Tabernacle on 23 May, and Leeds's Howard Assembly Rooms 24 May- Listen to Baaba Maal and Kwame Kwei-Armah talk about their tour on BBC World Service's The Strand
