RootsWorld's Music of the Month for December, 2017: Boubacar Traore

Boubacar Traoré is not only one of Africa's best guitarists and songwriters, he is also one your editor's favorite artists, in any genre from any where in the world, so I am doubly pleased that we can feature his work as our choice for Music of the Month. In my review of his previous recording, I write, "...a performance by Boubacar Traor� is personal. His voice is a thing of rugged beauty; his guitar playing a prod to the ear - crisp and punctuated. It is accented rather than overwhelmed by the musicians assembled in the studio." This one takes that idea to a new level by surrounding himself with such a unique group of artists, who all know where to place themselves in this production.

"Dounia Tabolo" was recorded in Lafayette, Louisiana, with Boubacar Traor� (guitar & vocals), Vincent Bucher (harmonica) and Alassane Samak� (calabash, shaker & percussion). Joining them are Cedric Watson (violin & washboard), Corey Harris (guitar and second voice on Ben de Kadi), and Leyla McCalla (cello and second voice on 'Je Chanterai Pour Toi').

These CDs were donated by the artist and Lusafrica, so all proceeds go to support the magazine and radio program. I thank them for their generous support.

Listen to some of the music on the album:

"Dounia Tabolo"

"Je Chanterai Puor Toi"

"Dis lui que je l'aime comme mon pays"

"Ben de Kadi"

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More About KaKar:
Boubacar Traor� carries within him all the beauty of African blues. A diamond among the jewels of Mandingo music, he shines with the dark glow of exceptional purity. Only the voice of "Kar Kar" (a footballing nickname meaning �The Dribbler� given him by his friends, who also love the beautiful game) can blend Niger and Mississippi river alluvia with such moving authenticity. His unique, inimitable, self-taught guitar technique owes a great deal to his kora influences, but its shades and phrasing also suggest the great black bluesmen of the deep South: Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and others.

Back in the 60s when the euphoria of African independence reigned, the 20-year-old Boubacar Traor� was Mali�s Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. He was the first to play Mandingo-based music on electric guitar, long before his junior, Ali Farka Tour�. In those days, Malians would wake to the sound of Boubacar�s poignant voice and saturated riffs. Hits including "Mali Twist" (Children of independent Mali, we must stand on our feet / Let all the young people return to their homeland / We must build the country together) and "Kayeba" provided dance music for a generation who were enjoying freedom for the first time. But then the celebrations and lyrical illusions ended. On the 19th November 1968, a bitter wind blew across Mali when Modibo Keita�s socialist government was overthrown by a military coup. Kar Kar and his songs were exiled from the airwaves. Returning penniless to Kayes, his hometown in the Kassonk� region (to the northeast of Bamako near the Senegalese border), Boubacar became a farm worker, opened a shop with his elder brother - the one who had introduced him to the guitar and given him his first one - and worked to feed his family.

He was rediscovered in 1987 when reporters from Malian national television visited Kayes. �Kar, you have to come to Bamako. You�ve never been seen on television since it began. Everyone should realise you�re not dead, you�re alive�� It was a renaissance for the artist. �People were amazed to see me. Most of them had only heard me on the radio,� he said at the time. Yet fate was to put a stop to Kar Kar�s musical rebirth. Pierrette, his beautiful mixed-race wife, his muse, his love, died bringing their last child into the world. Despairing and distraught, Kar Kar became a shadow of himself. It was then that he decided to look for work in Paris, where he joined the community of Malian migrant workers and shared their harsh life. �I was a building worker for two years,� is his only comment on this personal experience, but one of his songs says it all: �You can be a king at home, but when you�re a migrant, you�re a nobody.� The legacy of his time in the Barb�s immigrant quarter of Paris and the hostel in Montreuil where he sometimes performed is the flat cap the tall Malian wears today.

In Paris, an English producer discovered him and took him to the studio to record his first album, "Mariama", in 1990. Poignant, spare and melancholic, Kar Kar�s music had changed since his youth in the 60s. Now it was more refined, the art of a mature man expressing his heartaches and joys in song, his unique vocal timbre shrouded in nostalgia and poetry. Boubacar Traor�s life changed quickly after the record�s release. He made up for lost time, triumphing on stage first in Europe and then in the United States and Canada. And recorded another 6 albums: "S�cheresse" (Drought) in 1992; "Les enfants de Pierrette" (Pierrette�s Children) in 1995, "Sa Golo" in 1996, "Macir�" in 1999, music from the eponymous film directed by Jacques Sarasin: "Je chanterai pour toi" (I�ll Sing for You) in 2002, and "Kongo Magni" in 2005.