Mali

(Fr. République de Mali).

Country in West Africa. It has a total area of 1.24 million km² and a population of 12·56 million (2000 estimate), 90% of whom are Muslim. An estimated several million Malians now live in neighbouring countries and Europe, especially in and around Paris. The vast extent of the landlocked country reaches from the woodland savanna of its southern borders with Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, north along the Niger river towns of Bamako (the capital), Segou, Djenne, Mopti and Tombouctou (Timbuktu) at the Niger bend, and then almost 1000 km north into the heart of the Sahara desert, where it is bordered by Mauritania on the west and north-west, and Algeria on the east and north-east (fig.1).

The name Mali derives from the 13th–16th century empire that was one of the most extensive and wealthiest in Africa. A class of people known as jeli (Maninka or Malinké) or jaare (Soninke) were, and still are, the guardians of certain musical and oral traditions of the Malian nobility. Known as griots to early French writers, jelis still practise their professions today, and their presence dominates the national ensembles as well as urban popular music. The combination of gold wealth, vast internal trade networks, a class of nobility that patronized a professional artisan class, including musicians and oral historians, and little European contact until the end of the 19th century has contributed to the far-reaching renown of the musical traditions of Mali as deep-rooted, sophisticated and highly influential in West Africa. The transformation of some of these traditions for consumption on the world popular music market has been a multi-faceted process that has produced some extraordinary music that is remarkable for its reconciliation of the old and new.

1. Languages and ethnic groups.

2. Historical overview.

3. Musical sources.

4. Music and instruments of the Malian Sahel and savanna.

5. Music and society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ERIC CHARRY

Mali

1. Languages and ethnic groups.

The predominant languages in Mali are associated with the great kingdoms that ruled within its borders, and they belong to the northern subgroup of Mande languages: Soninke of ancient Ghana (north-western Mali); the Mandekan dialects of Maninka of old Mali (straddling the border between Mali and Guinea along the Niger river); and Bamana (Bambara) of Segou and Kaarta. Xasonka (Kassonke) are commonly described as an ethnic mix of Maninka, Soninke and FulBe (Fulɓe, Fulani, Fula or Peul) peoples whose homeland, Xaso, is located between Kayes and Bafoulabé. The suffix -nka or -ka (‘person from’) is usually attached to the name of a homeland to identify its people.

In southern Mali, the predominant groups are the Wasulunka (Wasulu or Wassulunka), Senufo (Sénoufo) and Minianka (Mamara). The Wasulunka, whose homeland, called Wasulu or Wassolon, is just east of the Mande homeland, are considered an ethnic mix of Maninka and FulBe, and the four major FulBe family names – Sangare, Sidibe, Diallo and Diakite (Jakite) – are commonly found among them. The Minianka, farmers who live in southern and south-eastern Mali, are a subgroup of the Senufo, who are found primarily in Côte d'Ivoire.

Much was written by French anthropologists in the mid-20th century about the culture of the Dogon, the cliff-dwellers in the Middle Niger region between Mopti and the Burkina Faso border, whose language belongs to the Gur family predominant further east. Many Dogon masks have been identified, some of which are several metres high, and their associated dances have had an impact on a Malian identity (see DeMott, 1982; JVC Video, 1990). Living in proximity to the Dogon are two groups closely associated with fishing, the Boso and Somono, and the Bobo (who refer to themselves as Bwa), who are predominant in Burkina Faso.

Although Mande groups dominate Mali, other peoples have contributed to Mali's cultural identity. The FulB are a widespread pastoralist group whose migrations have taken them from their probable homeland Tekrur (in northern Senegal) eastwards as far as Cameroon. The Tuareg, a desert and Sahelian people also known as Tamashek or Tamasheq (the name of their language), primarily live in the north. The Songhai (Songhay or Sonrai), who eventually established their own great empire, are found along the Niger river bend into Niger. Among desert and Sahelian peoples such as the Tuareg, Songhai and Moors, women play musical instruments.

Information on ethnic groups in Mali who are dominant in neighbouring countries is given in articles on Mauritania (Moors), Senegal (Fulami), Niger (Songhai), Burkina faso (Bobo), Côte d'Ivoire (Sénoufo) and Libya (Tuareg). See also FulBe music, Songhai music and Tuareg music.

Mali

2. Historical overview.

The beginning of the Sahara wet period about 12,000 years ago began the repopulation of the formerly hyper-arid desert covering much of Mali. Pastoralism began 7000 years ago, and for at least 3000 years the evidence of agriculture is unequivocal. In present-day Mali pastoral peoples inhabit the Sahel in the north, and agricultural peoples inhabit the savanna in the south. Iron-working, probably brought from North Africa by desert peoples plying Saharan routes, appeared around 2500 years ago at Jenne-Jeno (old Jenne). This may mark the earliest possible period for construction of many of the indigenous instruments that make use of extensive carving, such as wooden drums and frame xylophones. Middle Niger towns such as Jenne-Jeno were commercial centres linking the desert and outside world with the savanna in the 1st millennium ce. By the 9th century ce, the empire of Ghana was noted in Arabic writing; its dominion extended over much of present-day Mali.

Koumbi Sileh, the reputed capital of the Soninke empire of Wagadu (known to Arabic writers as Ghana), lies in Mauritania just across the Malian border (350 km north of Bamako). Early Arabic writing about Ghana rarely noted any musical activity, with two exceptions. Al-Bakrī may have referred to the dundun when he wrote in the 11th century: ‘The audience [of the king] is announced by the beating of a drum which they call dubaa, made from a long hollow log’ (Levtzion and Hopkins, 1981, p.80). Al-Idriisī wrote in the 12th century that the king of Ghana ‘has a corps of army commanders who come on horseback to his palace every morning. Each commander has a drum, which is beaten before him’ (Levtzion and Hopkins, 1981, p.110). Few of the published accounts of Soninke oral traditions (see C. Monteil, 1953; Dieterlen and Sylla, 1992) have been specifically concerned with music, but one early 20th-century source (see Frobenius, 1921) tells of a lute that was played during the time of the Wagadu empire, perhaps the gambare, which is played by Soninke griots today. The decline of the Ghana empire in the late 11th century and the subsequent southern dispersion of Soninke groups set the stage for the rise of the Mali empire, shifting the political centre of western Africa further south into the heart of the savanna.

The historical era that continues to dominate public consciousness is that of the rise of the Mande or Mali empire in the 13th century. (Mali is a FulBe - or Fulfulde-language pronunciation of Mande, Manden or Manding that was standardized in early French writing.) The founding of the Mali empire is attributed to a hero named Sunjata Keita. The Sunjata epic is one of the most widely researched and published in Africa, and its fundamental significance in the development of a Malian national identity cannot be overstated. Many of the prominent persons in the epic have songs dedicated to them (e.g. Sunjata, Fakoli, Sumanguru Kante and Tiramakan Traore), and the complex of pieces associated with the epic is a major part of the repertories of the national ballet and instrumental ensemble. It is the foundation of a widespread praise-singing tradition; the national anthem is drawn from it; the popular group Rail Band has recorded it several times; and references to it are frequently made at public celebrations such as marriages.

Two episodes in the Sunjata epic are particularly significant for music history. One concerns the origin of the Diabate lineage of jelis (griots), and the other concerns the Kouyate lineage and the magic primordial 13th-century bala xylophone, also known as balafon, that they inherited from Sumanguru Kante. That bala is believed to have been passed down through the Kouyate lineage and is now kept in a small village in Guinea on the border with Mali (see Kouyate, 1970), perhaps one of the oldest surviving instruments in sub-Saharan Africa.

The victory of Sunjata and the consolidation of Mande territories led to the formalization of three classes in many large-scale Malian societies: horon (nobility), including warriors and leaders; nyamakala (artisans), including numu (blacksmiths), garanke (leatherworkers), jeli (musical and verbal artisans) and fune or fina (public speakers specializing in praising and genealogies); and jon (slaves). The terminology and specific artisanal professions differ according to the ethnic group (the Maninka terms are given above). With the exception of slaves, this class system still exists today, albeit with some fluidity.

After several centuries of rule over much of the western Sahel and savanna, the Mali empire was eclipsed by the Songhai empire that originated in the region of Gao near the north-eastern border with Niger. In the 18th century two Bamana (Bambara) kingdoms, Segou and Kaarta, came to power north of Mande territory, giving rise to another epic tradition (see D. Conrad, 1990; A. Ba Konare, 1987). A series of musical pieces is associated with Bamana kings, including the well-known Tutu Jara, one of the most frequently played pieces in Mali. Wars and drought led to further fragmentation until a series of Islamic jihāds (holy wars) swept through West Africa led by FulBe clerics. Macina, along the Niger river, became a base of operations for El Hajj Umar Tall, the greatest of the jihād leaders and the subject of a well-known piece of music called Taara (‘He Has Gone’). By the late 19th century most of Mali was Muslim.

European entry into West Africa began in the mid-15th century, motivated in part to find the source of Malian gold. It was not until the mid-19th century that the French made serious progress inland and began the process of colonization in Mali, known alternately as the French Soudan (1890–99, 1920–59), Senegambia and Niger (1902–4) and Upper Senegal-Niger (1904–20). The foreign musical impact was largely limited to the introduction of European-made instruments, such as the guitar and accordion, probably sometime between the two world wars, and the disruption of the traditional patronage system. Members of the noble classes probably absorbed the greatest European influence in terms of language and education in European culture; griots remained largely removed from the European sphere until after independence.

Mali became an independent republic in 1960, and shortly thereafter regional and national music dance groups were formed after the Guinean model. By the early 1970s popular dance music in Mali reached an international audience in West Africa, and by the late 1980s Malian musical artists, such as Salif Keita (see fig.2), Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabate and Oumou Sangare, began making a significant impact on the world popular music scene, achieving some commercial success while maintaining the integrity of a Malian musical identity.

Mali

3. Musical sources.

Archaeological research has dramatically increased since the late 1970s, producing stunning insights into Malian prehistory. Little direct evidence of music-making has been unearthed, but the refining of a time frame for the movements of peoples and the beginnings of certain subsistence strategies (pastoralism and agriculture) and artisan activities (metal-working) has important ramifications for early music history. In general, musical instruments are uniquely associated with certain groups of people defined by their language (e.g. Maninka, Dogon and FulBe) or their activities (e.g. hunting). The diffusion of metal-working in Mali and beyond can help to explain the history of the jembe, which is associated with blacksmiths, or frame xylophones, which can be easily crafted with the use of metal tools. Malian harps associated with hunters' societies belong to a wider southern savanna harp culture that may date back to prehistoric times. Tracking the relationships among the limited number of diverse ethnic groups who play hunter's harps, xylophones, plucked and bowed lutes, hourglass squeeze drums or large double-headed bass drums may begin to open up the virtually unexplored territory of early music history in Mali and West Africa.

Historical information begins with Arabic writing on ancient Ghana in the 9th century (conveniently compiled and translated in Levtzion and Hopkins, 1981). (Arabic and European references to the music of Mande peoples can be found in Charry, 1999.) The mid-14th century world traveller Ibn Battūta provided a famous and richly detailed description of royal ceremonies at the seat of the Mali empire, including the use of what is probably the koni (lute), which was also noted by Al-'Umarī earlier in the century, and bala. The term jaali is also documented for the first time.

With the beginning of Portuguese writing on Africa in the mid-15th century, and later French and English writing, musical activity in the extended Mali empire becomes clearer. The most frequent descriptions concern griots and drumming and dancing events. Drawings of musical instruments, such as the bala and harps, occasionally appear in European sources (see Charry, ‘West African Harps’, 1994). Perhaps the first photographs of music-making among Mande peoples in Mali and neighbouring Guinea come from Gallieni's expedition of 1887–8 (see Fierro, 1986). Photographs include ensembles of jembes, balas and konis, and people labelled griot.

Recordings of Malian music date from at least the 1930s with a series of extraordinary cylinders and an accompanying silent film recorded by Laura Boulton (housed at the Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University). The great jelimuso or jali muso (female jeli) Sira Mori Diabate was recorded in 1949 by Arthur S. Alberts (also in the Archives of Traditional Music). In the 1950s the jelimuso Monkontafe Sacko was recorded by Vogue, and sporadic recordings appeared in the 1960s. In the early 1970s an unprecedented series of 14 LP albums jointly produced by the Ministry of Information of Mali and Bärenreiter Musicaphon was released, excerpts of which have been reissued by Syllart/Melodie. Albums are devoted to the national instrumental ensemble, the singers Fanta Damba and Fanta Sacko, the great ngoni player and singer Bazoumana Sissoko, a compilation of the best kora players in the country, including Sidiki Diabate and Batrou Sekou Kouyate, music of the Songhay, FulBe and Maninka, the national orchestra, the regional orchestras of Segou, Mopti, Kayes and Sikasso, and the Rail Band featuring a young Salif Keita. French releases of Malian music accelerated through the 1970s, and since the late 1980s CD recordings have attracted an international audience, with the total number of domestic and foreign releases of recordings of Malian music probably surpassing 200 by the late 1990s. Ali Farka Touré, a Songhai guitarist from the region of Tombouctou, is probably the most prolific Malian solo artist, and the groups Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs have released over a dozen recordings each. A local cassette industry has also released hundreds of recordings (if not more) of local artists. Films documenting Malian popular music began appearing by the early 1990s (Salif Keita, 1991; Bamako Beat, 1991).

The most extensive documentation project to date has been a collaboration between the International Institute for Traditional Music (Berlin) and the Musée National du Mali (Bamako) in 1991–5. Over 100 musical instruments were collected and hundreds of hours of music, speech and video were recorded throughout Mali, all deposited at the Musée National, and summarized in a catalogue (Musée National, 1996). Other important archives include the Archives of Traditional Music (Indiana University) and at the Musée de l'Homme (Paris).

Mali

4. Music and instruments of the Malian Sahel and savanna.

Table 1 lists many ethnic groups in Mali along with their names for the musical instruments they play. (Spellings are not standardized and often vary among sources.) The most widespread and visible melody instrument type is probably the plucked lute. Closely related plucked lutes with wooden-trough resonators are played by griots, primarily in the Sahelian region: Xasonka koni, Soninke gambare, Bamana ngoni (fig.3), Moorish tidinit and Maninka koni (see Charry, 1996). They have exerted an important influence on guitar-playing styles, which in turn have contributed to defining a Malian identity in popular dance music. Malian market cassettes abound in storytelling accompanied by lutes. There may be a relationship between these lutes and those of ancient Egypt, but the exact nature is not clear. Bowed lutes (also known as spike fiddles) are less frequently found.

An old southern savanna calabash harp tradition includes the three- or four-string warrior's harp called bolon (or some similar variant), played by a variety of peoples, including Maninka, FulBe and Senufo, and hunter's harp varieties like the Maninka simbi (seven strings, heptatonic) and Wasulu donso ngoni (six strings, pentatonic). The Kora, 21-string bridge-harp of the Maninka jeli, is an import from the Senegambia region, but a Malian style of playing has developed, thus broadening its repertory. The ndang (five or six strings) of Bamana or Wasulu origin is a pluriarc, with a calabash resonator. The LP Cordes anciennes (BM 30L 2505) surveys Malian kora styles, and Toumani Diabate's recordings brilliantly continue this legacy.

Wind instruments are not as widespread, but flutes include the well-known FulBe serdu (three-hole flute), and the Tuareg sarewa. Animal horns and whistles are used in the secret Mande Komo societies.

Two basic varieties of frame xylophones are used in Mali: the heptatonic Maninka bala (see Balo) and the larger pentatonic Bamana bala, Minianka/Senufo kpoye or jegele and Bobo cooza. All are perhaps closely related and often referred to indiscriminately as Turuka bala.

The most widespread instruments in Mali are drums, dozens of which have been identified. The three most visible are the jembe, dundun and tama, which co-exist with each other in the national ballet. The tama is part of a broad complex of hourglass drums found throughout the West African Sahel and northern savanna. The dundun, a large double-headed bass drum, has a similarly widespread distribution in West Africa. The jembe has a more southerly distribution, possibly reflecting migrations of Mande blacksmiths. A fourth kind of drum, made from a large calabash with a single head played with both hands, is also widely distributed.

With such a variety of instruments and tuning systems, it is difficult to generalize, since there is no single Malian style of music-making. Diverse tuning systems abound, much like languages and dialects, with identifiable local preferences. Pentatonic tuning systems are found among the Wasulu, Bamana and Minianka, as well as heptatonic systems among the Maninka and Xasonka. Within a tuning system several pitches may have two varieties (i.e. natural and sharp or natural and flat), especially in vocal performance, although they are not often used in the same piece of music. The National Ensemble combines disparate instruments with different tuning systems with no apparent difficulty.

An equiheptatonic tuning of the Maninka bala has been demonstrated by Rouget and Schwarz (1969), although few instruments (if any) conform closely to the theoretical model. The ready willingness to transpose a piece up or down simply by shifting left or right on the instrument supports their findings. Plucked lute tunings are based on an interval of a perfect 4th between the two main playing strings and a shorter string always plucked by the thumb a minor 7th or octave above the lower main string. Some lutes have added open strings that can enhance the variety of tunings. Knight's research on the tuning and modal practices of Gambian Mandinka jelis (1991) is also relevant for Mali. Ex.1 shows tunings for the Wasulu donso ngoni, Maninka simbi and Xasonka koni (lute).

The instrumental music that accompanies singing or dancing is based on rhythmic, harmonic or melodic cycles that can be conceptualized as consisting of a fixed number of beats (usually four, eight or twelve), each of which consists of a particular number of pulses (usually three or four). Musicians have no terminology equivalent to these Western notions, although dance steps usually demarcate the beat level. The bala piece Boloba (also known as Kura), which consists of five pulses per beat, is a rare exception. While the duration of a beat does not usually change within the course of a piece, drummers and hunter's musicians often expand or contract pulse lengths playing between a three-pulse and a four-pulse beat, inflecting the inner structure rather than creating sharp distinctions (see Polak, 1996). Pieces may be distinguished by a continually repeated melodic line on lutes and hunter's harps, a sequence of harmonic areas on xylophones and sometimes the kora or a rhythmic pattern on drums.

Ex.2 is a transcription of the renowned Wasulu donso ngoni player Seydou Camara playing the hunter's piece Kambili. While singing, this accompaniment remains relatively unchanged, but during vocal pauses he creates variations, including the one transcribed in Ex.2b, in which he subdivides into three rather than four pulses. Ex.2c shows Kulanjan played on the simbi by Mali's most respected hunter's musician, Bala Jimba Jakite. Ex.2d, a transcription of Tutu Jara played on the koni by Moussa Kouyate, shows the high degree of grace notes and ornamentation that is typical of koni playing.

Ex.3 shows transcriptions of the rhythms dundunba and maraka played by a jembe and dundun ensemble. Each rhythm has a generic jembe accompaniment that can be played with a number of other rhythms, and usually with another jembe accompaniment that identifies the specific rhythm. The long dundun part unequivocally defines each rhythm. A shorter part played on a smaller dundun (konkoni or kenkeni) is often inserted two or four times within a cycle. The jembe accompaniments are typically played twice (maraka) or four times (dundunba) per dundun cycle. Note that the identifying jembe parts in maraka and dundunba are the same, but are lined up differently in relation to the generic jembe part.

Although ensembles can reach large sizes, the focus is usually on one soloist at a time, such as a master drummer, lead vocalist or instrumentalist. The role of instrumental soloist can shift within an ensemble, with the other members taking on a variety of accompanying parts within each piece. Griots recognize two distinct vocal specialities: song (donkili in Maninka), consisting of relatively fixed melodies and forceful improvisational commentaries, and speech (kuma in Maninka), which can be chantlike and is the common vehicle for performing epics and retelling history. Throughout much of Mali, vocal or instrumental virtuosity is highly prized.

Mali

5. Music and society.

Griots such as the Maninka, Xasonka and Bamana jeli, Soninke jaare and FulBe gawlo, all hereditary professionals who belong to a limited number of lineages, are regarded as élite authorities whose duty it is to guard long-standing musical traditions. Instruments that are reserved exclusively for them include wooden trough-resonator lutes, the bala and kora (in the case of the Maninka), and the tama and dundun in north-western Mali. Female griots are vocalists par excellence and are among the most powerful musical artists with their high visibility as praise-singers. Three of the most renowned jelimusos active in the 1990s are Ami Koita, Kandia Kouyate and Tata Bambo Kouyate (see Durán 1995, 1998). Guitarists are widespread and most come from the ranks of jelis, although there are also significant numbers of non-jeli guitarists. There are no hereditary restrictions on most other instruments, a possible indication that these instruments may predate the reification of the institution of the griot, which dates back to the origins of the Mali empire, and perhaps earlier. Hunter's musicians may have been the prototype for griots, as their epic recitation, singing and instrument playing resemble the functions of the griot. The close relationship between the hunter's musician and hunter also resembles the relationship between griot and patron. Although there are no hereditary restrictions on jembe drumming, it is historically associated with Maninka numu (blacksmiths/sculptors).

Women in the savanna region in the south play a limited number of instruments, such as the Senufo cepinne (drum) and Bamana jidunun (calabash water-drum). Among the Bamana they are not considered to have professional status (see Modic, 1993). Jelimusos also play a narrow metal tube called nganga or karignan to accompany singing or dancing. By contrast, in the Sahelian region in the north among Tuareg, Songhai and Moorish peoples, females play a variety of string instruments and drums.

Three main types of regional and national performance groups exist with little interaction between them. Ensembles consist of traditional instruments and are dominated by griots. Ballets are drum and dance troupes that consist primarily of jembes, dunduns and tamas. Orchestras consist of foreign instruments such as electric guitars, saxophones, trumpets, keyboards and drum sets, and reflect strong influences from Latin American popular music. Regional groups preserve local culture, although there is mixing of ethnic traditions that otherwise would not occur in village traditions.

In the 1960s government-sponsored regional orchestras were established, and they competed in annual regional and national arts festivals, Semaines de la Jeunesse, organized by the Ministry of Culture, and replaced in 1970 with the Biennale Artistique et Culturelle de la Jeunesse. Three major Bamako orchestras sponsored by government ministries dominated popular music in the 1970s, and musicians from those groups went on to forge international careers by the late 1980s: the Rail Band (formed around 1970) based at the buffet attached to the rail station, featuring guitarist Djeli Mady Tounkara and Guinean singer Mory Kante; Les Ambassadeurs (formed around 1970) based at the Hotel du Bamako, featuring singer Salif Keita and Guinean guitarist and orchestra leader Manfila Kante; and National Badema, the national orchestra, featuring singer Kasse Mady Diabate, from a renowned jeli family in Kela, and led by Boncana Maiga from Gao, who spent eight years studying at the conservatory in Havana, Cuba, and is now Mali's most prolific arranger, working in Abidjan, Paris and New York. Beginning in the 1980s female Wasulu singers, such as Oumou Sangare, Nahawa Doumbia and Sali Sidibe, began eclipsing the popularity of the Bamako orchestras within Mali and abroad. Gaining exposure by winning the Biennale singing competitions, and unencumbered by the griot praise-singing tradition found among other ethnic groups, their voicing of concerns on contemporary matters, especially regarding women, has found a ready audience in contemporary Mali.

Throughout Mali, most celebratory and ritual events call for specific types of music. For example, string instruments are usually absent from drumming events that accompany movement such as dancing or agricultural labour. The division between harp-based and drum-based music is a fundamental one that may reflect historical relationships between hunters, whose music is dominated by harps, and blacksmiths, whose tools are crucial in many of the contexts surrounding drumming and dancing, such as circumcision and excision ceremonies, rites of age grade associations (e.g. Bamana Ntomo), secret power associations (e.g. Komo), agriculture-related masked dancing (e.g. the celebrated Wasulu Sogoninkun), agricultural labour and harvest celebrations. Other common occasions for drumming include marriage celebrations and regional and national ballet performances. Drumming at funerals is performed by non-Muslim peoples such as the Dogon. Marriage ceremonies can be quite elaborate, calling for intimate praise-singing by griots in addition to drumming. In the late 1960s an event called Apollo became popular, mixing electric guitars and traditional instruments. Renditions of grand epics can occur in public or intimate private concerts, or in infrequent ritual ceremonies, such as the septennial reroofing of the sacred hut in Kangaba.

While certain ritual events are private and closed to the public, other non-ritual events are public. Bamana, Boso and Somono communities in Segou stage elaborate puppet masquerades that they consider nyenaje (entertainment), to be enjoyed by all. A related genre is the koteba theatre of the Bamana. National and regional ballets stage performances secularizing village traditions, and night clubs offer live music by local orchestras. Concerts in Bamako's sports stadium and the Palais de la Culture concert hall offer a variety of music from around the country that draws large numbers of people.

Two major kinds of musical repertories that can be contrasted are epic praise-songs and drumming pieces for dancing. The epic pieces emphasize individuality. Delivered by solo singers or speakers, usually accompanied by string instruments or xylophones, they honour heroes from the past, and also praise living patrons and their lineages. Drumming and dance traditions honour groups of people, such as children undergoing ritual circumcisions and excisions, blacksmiths, a class of slaves or entire ethnic groups. The government-sponsored regional and national performing groups have contributed to the establishment of a canon of pieces drawn from diverse traditions, constructing a national Malian music culture. This influence, along with the typical exchange that takes place in cosmopolitan Bamako, has contributed to the appreciation of some dances such as dansa, jelidon (lamban), maraka and didadi.

Three epic pieces are widely known in Mali because of their association with heroes of the past: Sunjata, Tutu Jara, also known as Ba Juru (‘Mother's Tune’), and Taara (see §2 above). These three pieces are typically played on one or another griot lute, the kora or bala, and they also are played by urban dance orchestras. Hunter's music, a tradition that is believed to predate that of the griot praise-singers, also consists of epic-singing, but mythical rather than historical ancestors are most often the subject. Two Maninka hunter's pieces are widely known: Janjon, sung for and danced by those who have accomplished significant feats in life, and Kulanjan.

Several major trends continued to develop in the 1990s: drawing on the personae and sounds of the hunters of the southern savanna region; the predominance of female singers; and the use of the guitar. Popular music based on the Wasulu kamalen ngoni, a close relative of the donso ngoni, has become a signature of a Malian musical identity. Wasulu-based groups sometimes incorporate a guitar, but can also use local instruments exclusively: a Senufo xylophone, kamalen ngoni and the metal scraper that accompanies it, a one-string fiddle, and a bolon as a bass. Female singers who lead these groups have achieved a marked degree of commercial success, with Oumou Sangare leading the way with a series of remarkable recordings blending traditional and modern sensibilities.

The guitar has been used in Mali by many ethnic groups to play their music, and it has been used as a bridge between traditional and popular genres. Jeli guitarists are the most virtuosic, integrating it into their own tradition first and then introducing those traditions to urban orchestras via the electric guitar. The blending of traditional and popular genres has occurred on both fronts: by incorporating a bala or jembe into a modern, urban dance orchestra, or by incorporating a guitar into a traditional ensemble. The international stardom of Salif Keita and the success of young virtuosos such as Toumani Diabate, deeply grounded in the traditions of their country, yet willing to branch out in new directions, have reaffirmed Mali's reputation as a major producer of serious creative music in Africa.

Mali

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

Grove6 (‘Fulani Music’, D.W. Arnott; also ‘Songhay Music’, B. Surugue; ‘Tuareg Music’, T. Nikiprowetzky)

L. Frobenius: Spielsmannsgeschichten der Sahel (Jena, 1921)

C. Monteil: ‘La légende du Ouagadou et l'origine des Soninké’, Mélanges ethnologiques, Mémoires de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, xxiii (Dakar, 1953), 359–408

M. Griaule: ‘Nouvelles remarques sur la harpe-luth des Dogon’, Journal de la Société des africanistes, xxiv (1954), 119–22

C. Cutter: ‘The Politics of Music in Mali’, African Arts, i/3 (1968), 38–9, 74–7

G. Rouget and J. Schwarz: ‘Sur les xylophones equiheptaphoniques des Malinké’, RM, lv (1969), 47–77

M.M. Diabate: Janjon et autres chants populaires du Mali (Paris, 1970)

N. Kouyate: Recherches sur la tradition orale au Mali (pays Manding) (Diplôme d'études supérieures, U. of Algiers, 1970)

C. Bird: ‘Heroic Songs of the Mande Hunters’, African Folklore, ed. R. Dorson (Bloomington, IN, 1972), 275–93, 441–77

M. Diallo: Essai sur la musique traditionnelle au Mali (Paris, 1972)

P.J. Imperato: Historical Dictionary of Mali (Metuchen, NJ, 1977, 3/1996)

C. Nourrit and B. Pruitt, eds.: Musique traditionelle de l'Afrique noire: discographie, i: Mali (Paris, 1978)

N. Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, eds.: Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge, 1981)

B. DeMott: Dogon Masks: a Structural Study of Form and Meaning (Ann Arbor, 1982)

D.J. Coulibaly: Récits des chasseurs du Mali: Dingo Kanbili, une épopée des chasseurs malinké de Bala Jinba Jakite (Paris, 1985)

A. Fierro: Inventaire des photographies sur papier de la société de géographie (Paris, 1986)

J.W. Johnson: The Epic of Son-Jara: a West African Tradition (Bloomington, IN, 1986)

A. Ba Konare: L'épopée de Segu: Da Monson, un pouvoir guerrier (Paris, 1987)

Y. Cissé and W. Kamissoko: La grande geste du Mali, des origines à la fondation de l'empire (Paris, 1988)

R. Graham: The Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music (New York, 1988)

L. Durán: ‘Djely Mousso’, Folk Roots, no.75 (1989), 34–9

P. Abspoel: Chansons pour les masques Dogons (Utrecht, 198?)

D. Conrad, ed.: A State of Intrigue: the Epic of Bamana Segu according to Tayiru Banbera (Oxford, 1990)

R. Knight: ‘Music out of Africa: Mande Jaliya in Paris’, World of Music, xxxiii (1991), 52–69

G. Dieterlen and D. Sylla: L'Empire de Ghana: le Wagadou et les traditions de Yerere (Paris, 1992)

R. Graham: The World of African Music, ii (London, 1992)

A. Ba Konare: Dictionnaire des femmes célèbres du Mali (Bamako, 1993)

S. Brett-Smith: The Making of Bamana Sculpture: Creativity and Gender (Cambridge, 1994)

E. Charry: ‘The Grand Mande Guitar Tradition of the Western Sahel and Savannah’, World of Music, xxxvi/2 (1994), 21–61

E. Charry: ‘West African Harps’, JAMIS, xx (1994), 5–53

Y. Cisse: La confrérie des chasseurs Malinké et Bambara: mythes, rites et récits initiatiques (Paris, 1994)

M.J. Arnoldi: Playing with Time: Art and Performance in Central Mali (Bloomington, IN, 1995)

D. Conrad and B. Frank, eds.: Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw (Bloomington, IN, 1995)

L. Durán: ‘Birds of Wasulu: Freedom of Expression and Expressions of Freedom in the Popular Music of Southern Mali’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, iv (1995), 101–34

C.M.C. Keita: Massa Makan Diabaté: un griot mandingue à la rencontre de l'écriture (Paris, 1995)

E. Charry: ‘Plucked Lutes in West Africa: an Historical Overview’, GSJ, xlviiii (1996), 3–37

E.K. Modic: Song, Performance, and Power: the Ben Ka Di Women's Association in Bamako, Mali (diss., Indiana U., 1996)

R. Polak: Das Spiel der Jenbe-Trommel: Musik-und Festkultur in Bamako (Mali) (Bayreuth University, 1996)

Sons et rythmes du Mali: instruments et genres musicaux traditionnels (Bamako, 1996) [pubn of the Musée National du Mali]

R.C. Newton: The Epic Cassette: Technology, Tradition, and Imagination in Contemporary Bamana Segu (diss., U. of Wisconsin, 1997)

L. Durán: Stars and Songbirds: Female Singers in Mande Urban Music, Mali 1986–96 (diss., U. of London) [in prep.]

E. Charry: Mande Music (Chicago, 1999)

recordings

African Music, Folkways F–8852 (1957) [incl. notes by L. Boulton]

Les Dogons: les chants de la vie, le ritual funéraire, coll. F. di Dro and G. Dieterlen, Ocora 33 (1967)

Les meilleurs souvenirs de la 1ère biennale artistique et culturelle de la jeunesse (1971), BM 30L 2601–4, 2651 (1970)

Première anthologie de la musique malienne, BM 30L 2501–6 (1971)

Musique du Mali, BM 30L 2551–53 (1971)

Musik der Senufo, Museum für Völkerkunde MC 4 (1987) [incl. disc notes by T. Förster]

Kaira, perf. T. Diabate, Hannibal HNCD 1338 (1988)

JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance, xvii, videotape, dir. Kunihiko Nakagawa and Yuji Ichihashi (Osaka, 1990)

Salif Keita: Destiny of a Noble Outcast, videotape, dir. C. Austin, BBC (London, 1990–91)

Bamako Beat: Music from Mali, videotape, dir. M. Kidel, BBC (London, 1991)

Musiques du Mali, Banzoumana ii: Sira Mory, Melodie/Syllart 38901/38902 (1995)

Donkili/Call to Dance: Festival Music from Mali, dir. M. Kidel, PAN 2060CD (1997)