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| This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen magazine #103 (December 2002 / January 2003). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription. |
Malian artist Issa Bagayogo first came to the attention of music fans in his country in 1998, when he released an album titled Sya. This album was subsequently released in Europe and attracted positive notice among world-music fans. Bagayogo released a second album, Timbuktu, which was issued in the United States in 2002, prior to the U.S. release of Sya.
Bagayogo's music is being referred to in Mali as Afro-electro. He's working a sound that melds traditional songs and chants from his homeland in southern Mali with electronica, trance, and break beats.
When success came to Bagayogo, it came fairly quickly, but the story of his music career is hardly the tale of an overnight sensation. Until he was 30 years old, he had never played music outside of the region around Korin, where he grew up in a farming community.
"My family has been farming in southern Mali for so many generations that there's no way to put a date on when they first came there," Bagayogo said. "We grow corn, peanuts, and maize. My family did want me to continue in their farming tradition. At a fairly young age I started playing the kamele n'goni and was invited to play at weddings and reunions and things like that. I showed a talent for that, so I was bringing home some money. The tradition in Mali, of course, is that if people like your music, they give you a little money. So my parents changed their minds; they thought what I was doing was a good plan. They encouraged me to keep going with my music.
"I was singing as soon as I began playing. We were singing traditional songs. I wasn't yet writing proper compositions. I was doing traditional songs that I could do my own way, you know, bring my own interpretations to the material.
"Nowadays I write some songs totally out of the blue, while playing the kamele n'goni," he added. "I write melodies and text to create a song. Periodically I go back to my village and record the traditional songs and chants, and then I return to Bamako and work to interpret that material in my own way. So I do both original songs and what I'd call adaptations of traditional music."
The first time Bagayogo visited Bamako, the capital of Mali, he was 30 years old. He traveled there in 1991 to record a cassette. In west Africa, aspiring musicians don't cut CDs, they do cassette recordings. Bagayogo took his trip to Bamako without informing his mother or eldest brother of his plans.
He did, indeed, record a cassette during his initial stay in Bamako. The cassette caused absolutely no stir whatsoever, and he soon found himself back on the family farm. He returned to Bamako two years later and recorded another cassette. Not much came of this second recording either, but this time Bagayogo remained in Bamako, where he found work as an apprentice bus driver.
At this point in his life, things were not going too well. Hoping to pursue his musical ambitions, Bagayogo had relocated hundreds of miles away from his home. His music was getting him nowhere, however, and he began to develop something of a drug problem. His wife subsequently left him, though her complaint had more to do with money problems than Bagayogo's substance abuse.
"I wrote a song called 'Cici,' which talks about drugs and the downside of drug use," Bagayogo noted. "My message is, 'Stay away from drugs,' because they destroy the soul."
This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #103 (Dec. '02/Jan. '03). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.
