Mali's Salif Keita coming for Botswanacraft music show

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Tuesday September 13, 2011 00:00

On September 29, the Gaborone entertainment venue will feature one of Africa's superstars, Salif Keita from Mali.   The Malian artist will be sharing the stage with our own Banjo Mosele who is based in Norway.  Mosele who has just released a new album Across Equator, is in the country for a couple of shows.

This is not Keita's first show in the country.   He once staged a concert here in the mid-'90s. 

Oliver Groth of Botswanacraft confirmed the Keita show.  He said Keita would be coming at a time when he has released his latest album titled  Anthology.

Keita is one of the giants of African music.   According to his biography, Keita was born on August 25, 1949 in Mali.  He has since become an international Afro pop singer/songwriter.  He is unique not only because of his reputation as the Golden Voice of Africa, but because he has albinism and is a direct descendant of the founder of the Mali Empire, Sundiata Keita.

This royal heritage meant that under the Malian caste system, he should never have become a singer, which was deemed to be a griot's role.

Keita was born in the city of Djoliba.  He was cast out by his family and ostracised by the community because of his albinism.  He left Djoliba for Bamako in 1967 where he joined the government sponsored Super Rail Band de Bamako, which was based at Bamako railway station hotel.  The band served as a launching pad for the careers of West African musicians.

The Rail band became legendary because it nurtured the likes of kora player and singer Mary Kante.  It was also one of the first to electrify Madingo music and integrate Afro-Cuban influences, which many West African instrumentalists brought back from their stay in Cuba.

Keita left the Rail band in 1973 to join Les Ambassadeurs.  Les Ambassadeurs developed the fusion between traditional music and Western electric influences.

In 1984 Keita moved to Paris to reach a larger audience.  His music combines traditional West African music styles with influences from both Europe and the Americas, while maintaining an overall Islamic style.  Musical instruments that are commonly featured in Keita's work include guitars, koras, organs, saxophones and synthesisers. 

In 1990, Keita contributed Begin the Beguine to the Cole Porter tribute/AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue produced by the Red Hot organisation.

Keita found success in Europe as one of the African stars of world music, but his music was sometimes criticised for the gloss of its production and for the occasional haphazard quality.  However, shortly after the turn of the Millennium he returned to his roots in Bamako, Mali to live and record.

His first work after going home, Moffou, was hailed as his best album in many years and Keita was inspired to build a recording studio in Bamako.  It was at his studio where he recorded M'Bemba in 2005.

In 2009, Keita released La Differ'ence.

This album is dedicated to the struggle of the albino community for the world over, which Keita has been crusading all his life.  In one of the album's tracks, the singer calls others to understand that 'difference' does not mean 'bad' and to show love and compassion towards albinos like everyone else.  'I am black, my skin is white so that I am white and my blood is black (albino)... I love that because it is a difference that... some of us are beautiful some are not/some are black some are white/all that difference was on purpose... for us to complete others/let everyone get his love and dignity/the world will be beautiful.'