Oumou Sangaré - Ah Ndiya
Great Music of Mali part 94

I don't know what it is about Mali that produces so many great musicians. It's not just the Malian classical tradition, the cora-playing griots, that come up with essential listening. There's music from across the social classes that is just as entrancing.

Wassoulou is a style of modern Malian folk. It's derived from traditional hunting songs. Yet in the hands of perhaps its greatest proponent, Oumou Sangaré, it goes way beyond its traditional roots. She uses the hypnotic and beautiful patterns of the music to create songs that call for the liberation of women. At least, that's what all of the blurbs say. All I know is that she has an incredible voices, at once clear and strident.

If I have a problem with some folk music, it's that some of it can be painfully simplistic and predictable. It doesn't matter how beautifully nuanced the performance if it's all rumpty-rumpty-rumpty tum and obvious tunes. I don't know about other wassoulou performers, but with Sangaré that's certainly not the case. It's complex and delicate and powerful.

Here's Ah Ndiya, the closing track to her phenomenally successful debut Moussolou. Terrific stuff, and hopefully not the last track by her to appear here.

Oumou Sangaré - Ah Ndiya