About Baba Salah

Baba is a Malian  from Gao in northern Mali. Songhai music is often linked with American blues, with its slower tempo and pentatonic scales, and with artists such as Ali Farka Touré blurring the line. Baba Salah is one of the most successful singers at home, yet he has been virtually unknown outside of Africa.

Ahmed Fofana and Metis Mandingue live in Bamako

About 2 minutes into the video, you’ll recognize the melody from Ahmed’s song Baro, featured on Akwaaba wo Africa.

Ahmed grew up in the griot tradition of poetry and music. A talented multi-instrumentist, he has played the flute, balafon (African xylophone), kora and hand drums for numerous Malian greats, including Toumani Diabaté and Vieux Farka Touré. Today he is still touring with them but also focusing on his own projects, including Riff Mandingue which will come out on Akwaaba.

It gets real hot in Bamako, so a lot of the social life happens at night. Friends like to meet after dinner for baro, to chat, often over shots of attaya. Attaya is a tea patiently prepared from green tea, and served in series of three small shot glasses, bitter, strong then sweet. It’s prepared in a pot right on top of a small pyramide of coals. Malians often offered me a glass of attaya, the inside joke being that a toubab is served the third brew, the sweetest and least bitter – the same usually served to children!

I was able to make my way to the full three rounds, complete with discussions flowing from French to Bambara and back, tales of musicians on the road, of cousins in Paris, and one name that came back often was… Obama!

Ahmed Fofana - Akwaaba Wo Africa

Meeting LIB Queen at Hush Hush Studios

ABK and Oumar took me back to Hush Hush Studios, where I met the owner, Daniel, and LIB Queen, one of Liberia’s top acts. She’s played for a UN concert, for Liberia’s first female president, and a number of other shows in Liberia as well as in Ghana where she now lives. She sings to hiplife, dancehall and reggae beat produced by some of Ghana’s finest, right here at Hush Hush.

Lib Queen - Akwaaba Wo Africa

Kofi Sammy

Kofi is a Ghanaian highlife legend. We met today and I listened to a few of his albums. He formed the Okukuseku International Band in Accra in 1969, released music throughout the 70s and became one of Ghana’s top acts by the time he left for Nigeria in 1979. He kept recording in Eastern Nigeria, incorporating musical elements from this other highlife hotbed. He now lives between Ghana and Nigeria and occasionally plays for Ghanaians abroad, but has yet to truly breakthrough. Akwaaba’s hoping to re-release and probably remaster some of his great highlife. For the time being all we could find online were these – out of stock last time we checked, but the covers alone are worth checking!

Kofi Sammy - Akwaaba Wo Africa

Getting a hold of Les Patrons

It was tough! Charlie Parker is Les Patrons’ manager, and he’s a busy man. We eventually found time to meet and share ideas. We agreed to work les Patrons’ 2 first albums through Akwaaba!

Les Patrons are insanely huge in Abidjan, you hear their music at all the maquis, here’s one of their biggest hits: