From the Burkinabè blues of Soba to the tropical Afro-Latin of Ayom. (Rebroadcast)
Our first guests: the Soba trio for the release of the first album Film
Formed by singer-guitarist Moussa Koita, harmonica player Vincent Bucher and drummer Émile Biayenda, Soba reconnects the links between Mandingo song and Mississippi blues. An afro-blues as rustic as it is luminous, through which the trio explores the recesses of the human soul. To trace the roots of the blues, one must reach the Mississippi from Chicago, sail south to New Orleans via Memphis, then embark for the Caribbean and finally cross the Atlantic to the shores of Africa. West from which the rhizome branches via the Niger and Congo rivers. We can read The country where the blues was bornby Alan Lomax, or watch “From Mali to Mississippi: Feel Like Going Home,” by Martin Scorsese. We can delve into historical recordings, from the American pioneer WC Handy to the Malian master Ali Farka Touré. To understand everything about the journeys that form the eternal youth of the blues, we can finally listen to a luminous album thanks to which everything becomes clear: Fiman, by the Franco-Burkinabe trio Soba. Soba means “the big house” in Dioula, the Mandingo language particularly practiced in Burkina Faso. Home of friendly reunions and musical complicity, Soba is the roof under which Moussa Koita, Vincent Bucher and Émile Biayenda meet. The group has been built over the last six years, from when its members got to know each other through each other’s projects, to wanting to build their group on the foundations of the blues that they have in common.
Between Moussa Koita and Vincent Bucher, the collaboration was established in the group of Abou Diarra, the Malian master of kamele n’goni who digs into the source of Mandingo blues. The intuition was quickly confirmed that they were made to play together. Burkinabè guitarist and singer, born into a family of griots from Bobo-Dioulasso, Moussa Koita scoured the Parisian underground where his reputation is glowing in the fields of traditional West African Music, reggae and soul, in addition to working with the group Rivière noire and singer Kady Diarra. Twenty-two years his senior, harmonica player Vincent Bucher first became passionate about the original blues. Immersed in the Parisian “global sound system” of the early 1980s, then an accomplice of CharlElie Couture, Bill Deraime, Patrick Verbecke and the Heritage Blues Orchestra nominated for the Grammy Awards in 2013, he established fruitful partnerships with the Franco-Malagasy polyinstrumentalist Tao Ravao and the eminent Malian guitarist Boubacar Traoré. At the time when the two musicians supported Abou Diarra, Moussa Koita was already developing, with prolific creativity, his own projects of contemporary Mandinka songs on which Vincent Bucher sometimes added harmonica parts. The idea soon emerged to build a bridge with the Mississippian blues, in its most rustic essence. The duo quickly checks that the connection is working. To do it well, all that is missing is a drummer-percussionist who would indicate the rhythm inherent to the genre. One of the most popular musicians in the sub-Saharan diaspora, an explorer of hybridizations between jazz and ancestral rituals, to the point of immersing himself for six months with the Mbenga pygmies, Émile Biayenda is ideal. After working with Vincent Bucher with Tao Ravao and the Tambours de Brazza, he met Moussa Koita in the group of Sam Mangwana, legend of Congolese rumba. Moussa, Vincent, Émile: the stars are aligned. The trio was born.
Titles performed at the big studio
– Film Live RFI
– Horonkefrom the album
– Position Live RFI
Line Up : Moussa Koita (vocals, guitar), Vincent Bucher (harmonica) and Emile Biayenda (battery, cajon).
Son : Mathias Taylor, Benoît Letirant and Camille Roch
► Album Film (MDC/Integral Piece 2024)
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Then we welcome the group Ayom for the release of the album SaLiVa.
Ayom is a group of 6 travelers: Jabu, a Brazilian; Alberto, an Italian living in Spain; Timoteo, of Greek and Italian origin; Francesco, also Italian, Ricardo and Walter, both Angolan. They came together around a common passion for the music of the African and Portuguese-speaking diaspora in particular (Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde), and found in Lisbon, a sort of homeland.
After performing with the Black Atlantic Tour around the world, Ayom releases the album Sa.Li.Vaan acronym representing 3 impulses: “SA-grado” (sacredness), “LI-berdade” (freedom and love) and “VA-lentia” (courage).
The album is a trilogy, with 3 titles linked to the Sacred, 3 others which celebrate freedom, love and life, and the last 3 which address the themes of the fight against injustice, racism, machismo and colonization . On this album, we sing in Italian, Portuguese or Yoruba.
Titles performed at the big studio
– Children of Drought Live RFI
– Fire Dressfrom the album
– I Want Me More Live RFI
Line Up : Jabu Morales (vocals, percussion), Timoteo Grignani (percussion), Alberto Becucci (accordion) and Ricardo Quinteira (electric guitar)
Son : Mathias Taylor, Benoît Letirant and Camille Roch
► Album Sa Li Va (Ayom music, the Other Dist. 2024)
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To read in The Guardian
Realization : Donatien Cahu
