HOME
*





Wassoulou Music
Wassoulou ( bm, Wasolo) is a genre of West African popular music named for the Wassoulou cultural area. Wassoulou music is performed mostly by women. Some recurring themes in the lyrics are childbearing, fertility, and polygamy. Instrumentation includes soku (a traditional fiddle sometimes replaced with modern imported instruments), djembe drum, kamalen n'goni (a six-stringed harp), karinyan (metal tube percussion) and bolon (a four-stringed harp). The vocals are often passionate and emphatic, and delivered in a call-and-response pattern. Prominent Wassoulou artists include Nahawa Doumbia, Oumou Sangaré, Coumba Sidibe, Dienaba Diakite, Kagbe Sidibe, Sali Sidibe, Jah Youssouf, and Fatoumata Diawara Fatoumata Diawara ( bm, ߝߊ߫ߕߎߡߕߊ ߖߊ߯ߥߙߊ߫, Fatumta Jawara, born 1982) is a Malian singer-songwriter currently living in France. Diawara began her career as an actress in theatre and in film, including ''Genesis'' (1999), '' Sia, T .... Notes Refer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Wassoulou Map
Wassoulou is a cultural area and historical region in the Wassoulou River Valley of West Africa. It is home to about 160,000 people, and is also the native land of the Wassoulou genre of music. Wassoulou surrounds the point where the borders of three present-day countries meet: Mali, Ivory Coast, and Guinea. It includes portions of southwestern Mali, northwestern Ivory Coast, and eastern Guinea. It is bordered by the Niger River to the northwest, and by the Sankarani River to the east. The name ''Wassoulou'' is alternately spelled Wassulu, Wassalou, and Ouassalou. Regions of Africa Culture Wassoulou is the birthplace of Wassoulou music, a style which blends traditional and modern influences with strong female vocalists and a pentatonic hunter's harp. Wassoulou music is one of the two forms of West African music ethnomusicologists believe to be the origin of the American blues, which developed out of music forms dating back to the American slave trade from West Africa. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bolon (musical Instrument)
The bolon ( bm, ߓߐ߬ߟߐ߲, italics=no) or M'Bolon is a traditional harp played in Mali, as well as Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we .... It was notably played in hunting ceremonies or before a battle, to rouse warriors' valor. It was also used by the Jola in Gambia for accompaniment for men's choruses.Stone, Ruth M., ed. "West Africa: An Introduction." ''Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 1: Africa''. New York: Routledge, Array. 458-86. ''Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music''. Web. 29 Sept. 2016. Among other string instruments played in Guinea, the bolon is the oldest. The bolon is a three-stringed instrument, constructed from a large calabash covered by unshaven goat skin, and a bow-shaped neck. When playing, it is placed betwee ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fatoumata Diawara
Fatoumata Diawara ( bm, ߝߊ߫ߕߎߡߕߊ ߖߊ߯ߥߙߊ߫, Fatumta Jawara, born 1982) is a Malian singer-songwriter currently living in France. Diawara began her career as an actress in theatre and in film, including ''Genesis'' (1999), '' Sia, The Dream of the Python'' (2001) and ''Timbuktu'' (2014). She later launched a career in music, collaborating with numerous artists and releasing three studio albums beginning with 2011 debut ''Fatou''. Diawara's music combines traditional Wassoulou with international styles. Early life Diawara was born in 1982 in the Ivory Coast to Malian parents. As an adolescent, she was sent back to their native Bamako in Mali to be raised by an aunt. When she was eighteen, Diawara moved to France to pursue acting. She briefly returned to Mali for a film role, but fled back to Paris to avoid being coerced into marriage by her family. Film and theatre After moving to France, Diawara appeared in Cheick Oumar Sissoko's 1999 feature film ''Genesis'' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Jah Youssouf
Jah or Yah ( he, , ''Yāh'') is a short form of (YHWH), the four letters that form the tetragrammaton, the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of ''Jah'' is , even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant (Hebrew י Yodh). The spelling ''Yah'' is designed to make the pronunciation explicit in an English-language context (see also romanization of Hebrew), especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study. This short form of the name occurs 50 times in the text of the Hebrew Bible, of which 24 form part of the phrase "Hallelujah", a phrase that continues to be employed by Jews and Christians to give praise to Yahweh. In the Christian King James Version (1611) there is a single instance of ''JAH'' (capitalized), in Psalm 68:4. ''An American Translation'' (1939) and the New King James Version "NKJV" (1982) follows KJV in using ''Yah'' in this ver ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oumou Sangaré
Oumou Sangaré ( bm, Umu Sangare; born 25 February 1968 in Bamako) is a Grammy Award-winning Malian Wassoulou musician, sometimes referred to as "The Songbird of Wassoulou". Wassoulou is a historical region south of the Niger River, where the music descends from age-old traditional song, often accompanied by a calabash. Early life Sangaré was born in 1968 to singer Aminata Diakité and Sidiki Sangaré, both of whom originated from the Wassoulou region. In 1970, her father took a second wife and moved to Abidjan, leaving Sangaré, her mother and her siblings behind in Bamako. She began singing in the streets to help her mother, leaving school at an early age to do so. Her career began in 1973 when, at the age of five, she won an inter-kindergarten singing competition in Bamako, going on to perform before an audience of several thousand at the Omnisport stadium. At 16, she went on tour with the percussion group Djoliba, touring in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Caribbean ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




The Vinyl Factory
The Vinyl Factory is a large music company based in London, United Kingdom. It includes a record label, vinyl pressing plant, and a venue space. It also publishes ''Fact'' magazine and owns Phonica Records store. Overview The Vinyl Factory began as a pressing plant in 2001 after purchasing the manufacturing equipment from EMI. For two years, they completed orders left over from EMI's company, which helped keep and maintain a loyal customer base. In 2008, Vinyl Factory expanded into a record label. Commissions & exhibitions The Vinyl Factory has curated exhibitions and events at three spaces in London, The Vinyl Factory Soho, Brewer Street Car Park and Store Studios, 180 The Strand. Recent audio-visual shows presented by Store X The Vinyl Factory have included The Infinite Mix (2016), in partnership with Hayward Gallery; Everything At Once (2017) in partnership with Lisson Gallery and Arthur Jafa's Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2017), in partnership with the S ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Nahawa Doumbia
Nahawa Doumbia (born ca. 1961) is a singer from Mali's Wassoulou region. Biography and career Doumbia, in a career that lasted for over four decades, was an important musician in the development and definition of Wassoulou music, the popular music from her area of Southern Mali, which in turn had a great influence on Mali's musical culture. Doumbia was born into a caste of blacksmiths and so wouldn't have been allowed to sing, but broke that taboo. Her career got started after she won a contest on the French-language radio station Radio France Internationale. Scholar Lucy O'Brien mentioned her as one of the women who created a music that gave voice to female expression, and praised her "high-tech poetry and metaphor" in a study of women in popular music. Her debut album, ''La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 1'', was recorded with N’Gou Bagayoko, who played acoustic guitar and who later became her husband. After her first recording, as a duo, she moved toward playing with larger g ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Call And Response (music)
In music, call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually written in different parts of the music, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or in response to the first. This can take form as commentary to a statement, an answer to a question or repetition of a phrase following or slightly overlapping the initial speaker(s). It corresponds to the call and response pattern in human communication and is found as a basic element of musical form, such as verse-chorus form, in many traditions. African music In Sub-Saharan African cultures, call and response is a pervasive pattern of democratic participation—in public gatherings in the discussion of civic affairs, in religious rituals, as well as in vocal and instrumental musical expression. African-American music Enslaved Africans brought call and response music with them to the colonized American continents and it has been transmitted over the centuries in various forms of cultural express ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]