Every Friday, The World Africa presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, it’s time for “live” with albums which reproduce concerts by the Moroccan singer Oum in Marrakech, the Malian guitarist Mama Sissoko in Paris and the Ethiopian accordionist Hailu Mergia in New York.
«Black Tears», d’Oum
It is with a “live” album released on Friday March 22 that Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui – better known by just her first name – decided to celebrate her fifteen years of career. At 45, the Moroccan author, composer and performer born in Casablanca has five opuses behind her, from Like ‘Oum (2009) to Hals (2022), the latter being the result of a collaboration with the Cuban musician M-Carlos. Coincidence or not, the disc recorded during a concert in Marrakech and entitled Dakchi (“these things”, in Darija) includes, among three unpublished releases, a very beautiful cover of black tears, a piece signed by another Cuban, Miguel Matamoros (1894-1971), and whose text Oum adapted into Moroccan dialect Arabic.
« Diarabi », de Mama Sissoko
Born in 1949 in Nioro du Sahel, in western Mali, musician and singer Mama Sissoko is renowned as one of the best guitarists in West Africa. Raised in Bamako by his uncle, the griot and ngoni player Djeli Baba Sissoko, it was in Ségou (center) that he cut his teeth by joining the famous Super Biton orchestra in 1974, of which he remained a pillar until the separation of the group in the mid-1980s. He then began a solo career which culminated in 1999 with Midnight Sun, an opus at the crossroads of different Malian traditions and jazz. Released at the end of January, the album Live is the presentation of this disc on the stage of La Villette, in Paris, the previous year.
“The Beauty of Beduby,” by Hailu Mergia
Finally, head to New York for a concert by Ethiopian accordionist and keyboardist Hailu Mergia in 2016, accompanied by drummer Kenneth Joseph and bassist Alemseged Kebede at the Pioneer Works cultural center in Brooklyn. Former leader of the Walias Band, a funk and jazz orchestra which played in Addis Ababa hotels in the 1970s, Hailu Mergia was exiled to the United States during a tour, fleeing the authoritarian regime of the Derg (1974-1987). Having become a taxi driver in Washington, he was rediscovered in 2013 by the American label Awesome Tapes From Africa, which has published its six albums and has been offering since November 2023 this “live” of six pieces entitled Pioneer Works Swing.
Find all of the editorial staff’s musical favorites in the YouTube playlist of World Africa.