This production is IMO a real step-ahead for african musics, let me please tell you why

[Krakatau]

it's a long, long time now that i wanted to give this hommage to that production that makes a real and elaborate bridge between traditionnal and modern african music,...and this is nothing neglectable !

And even more than that : a bridge with the traditionnal music of a peculiar ethnia from Burkina Faso, the Mossi tribe being about 54% of BF population (about 14 million people),... though they borrowed for instance this typical snare phrase from the "coupé-décalé" of Ivory Coast style of music (...likely for commercial reasons !) and as far as i can judge, it's the very first time i'm hearing a convincing sequenced drum and percussion parts that gives justice to their traditionnal rythms with such an accuracy,

sincerely...

The Artist is called Abibou Sawadogo, from Burkina Faso



As you can hear, this music is based on a complex signature, typically tending to introduce binary phrases and interpretation with a very clever integration into sequencer programming, especially for drums and synth stabs

Notice around 1'00'' the discreet introduction of these synth and especially the short and nervous fill out of bass drum (as it would have been played by a double drum) that matches accurately this complex groove, unknown in western culture

Notice also (from 3'28'' to 3'37'') the short instrumental break with a frankly binary phrase made by the kunde player, that has included an electric guitar microphone in it body a integration inspired by electric guitar technology

Notice the simultaneous variation in the dance of the singer during the break

Be aware that these binary phrases are mostly perceived as a transitory moment as would be a swinging interpretation for a western year in where the ground is into binary beats

By the past i heard some very intelligent workaround in where loops of acoustic percussions were used as base for the entire arrangement, musicians where then playing their parts after it in re-re method ,...but here it seems to be a real step-by-step work of quantisation

Just figure out this, DAWs, arpegiators and steps sequencer's and have from the beginning of eighties have in their spread as international musical standards imposed their simplified (and even debilitating, sorry...) binary beats and this song is a real gem on how it combines grooves of real instruments and midi programming

Of course, because this music has his roots into a (very specific) african traditionnal music and instruments from center of Burkina Faso, the harmony is strictly monodic (except perhaps the synth stabs ?) in its adaptation in F# minor pentatonic with no modal transpositions, but it take it strentgh in this hypnotic, repetitive phrases, especially trought this pattern of plucked instrument right behind the singer's voice (Kunde, AFAIK as important for many Gur/Voltaic cultures as is the balafon for the Manding ones and around)

... also as many arrangements/adaptations to "international" (western) standards and as a western mind, as far as my notions of music theorys are acquired , i have this deeply intoxicating feel in where, in the contrary of my root culture, the melodies here are mainly concluding their phrases at transitory steps into the grounding scale (mainly 4th, then 2nd eventually 5th in the case)

...Being basically inspired inside traditionnal culture it strongly reminds me of the transmition of oral tradition in where reality and myths are totally intricated, this video comes from the court of a Mossi's King that is a Major ethnia of the country, i'm not experienced into video mounting but i suspect this one to includes as many subtleties as it soundtrack does

[vurt]

dunno about all that, but it's pretty cool

spent a short time in west africa many years ago, staying with locals and the village musicians, pretty much every night they would play for us.
sadly never been to any other areas, would love to go again one day....

[Krakatau]

dunno about all that, but it's pretty cool

spent a short time in west africa many years ago, staying with locals and the village musicians, pretty much every night they would play for us.
sadly never been to any other areas, would love to go again one day....

Where in western-africa exactly ? ...every areas have their own cultural and musical specificity you know ? ...I'm curious to know, I beg you !

[Unaspected]

I dig it.

[Krakatau]

As another example of diatonic adaptation of traditional scales, here an example typically coming out of Manding culture

the artist singing in Malinke Language (again a Manding dialect from guinea Conakry) is called Sekouba Bambino



again the phrases of the melodies seems to end systematically on transitory steps in the grounding scale (I would say : B dorian at my level of knowledge)

Also notice that in the case, the Manding scale is likely the only African scale not being pentatonic, so melodic phrases are more detailed than with other African cultures

here at my implicit knowledge of harmony ,it's the 3nd and then 4th step that are magnified in these melody

[Krakatau]

And here as a last example, an arrangement I've made personnaly for a singer from south Burkina Faso, belonging to the Bobo-mandare ethnia


in where the harmonic correction of the singed scale ( Bobo-Mandare scale being completely achromatic) gave these totally unexpected melodies



arranged in an A dorian scale... in where the 4th and then the 3rd steps are magnified and concludes most of the melodic phrases

[vurt]

dunno about all that, but it's pretty cool

spent a short time in west africa many years ago, staying with locals and the village musicians, pretty much every night they would play for us.
sadly never been to any other areas, would love to go again one day....

Where in western-africa exactly ? ...every areas have their own cultural and musical specificity you know ? ...I'm curious to know, I beg you !

gambia and ghana.

yeah, many cultures across the continent, each with their own musical heritage. it's one reason id like to return, so much is different, sometimes even fairly local to one another, there's a world of difference, let alone across the whole continent

[Krakatau]

I can extrapolate about Gambia that share similar root cultures with Senegal, especially in Casamance

they know a Manding language called "Mandinka" and very likely share the heptatonic scale proper to the Manding Balafon, wish is an exception in Africa , pentatonic scale rules their music almost everywhere