''Kulanjan'' is a 1999

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blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

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Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

and

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

an kora-player

Toumani Diabaté Toumani Diabaté ( ; born 10 August 1965) is a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he has also been involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles. I ...

. Mahal had first visited Mali in 1979, and the title of the album comes from the track "Kulanjan" from the 1970 album of kora music, ''Ancient Strings'', by Toumani Diabaté's father

Sidiki Diabaté Sidiki Diabaté is a Malian kora player, musician and music producer born in 1992 in Bamako, Mali. He is the son of renowned kora player Toumani Diabaté and grandson of Sidiki Diabaté. Diabaté belongs to the 77th generation of musicians in a l ...

. Mahal and Toumani Diabaté had first met in 1990, and in 1999, Toumani Diabeté selected six virtuoso Malian musicians and took them to record the album with Mahal in

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...

.Ali of Mali: Guitar king of the Sahara
", Salon.com The album was described by ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'' as "a rousing set of eclectic grooves, calling on ragtime, barrelhouse blues and even rock'n'roll". ''Kulanjan'' was named album of the year by ''

Folk Roots ''fRoots'' (pronounced "eff-Roots", originally ''Folk Roots'') was a specialist music magazine published in the UK between 1979 and 2019. It specialised in folk and world music, and featured regular compilation downloadable albums, with occas ...

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Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

recommended the album in a survey for the Borders book chain.Grammy-nominated Mali musician gets Obama boost
, sina.com Taj Mahal followed the album with a tour accompanied by West African musicians, linking his American blues sound to traditional West African rhythms and tracing the origins of blues to West Africa, Mahal is also convinced that Mali's Mande griot (musician) clan were his ancestors.Cornwell, Jane (1999)

, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 12 November 1999

Track listing

# "Queen Bee" (Mahal) # "Tunkaranke (The Adventurer)" (Mahal, Diabaté) # "Ol' Georgie Buck" (Mahal) # "Kulanjan (The Long-Crested Hawk-Eagle)" (Diabaté) # "Fanta" (Mahal, Diabaté) # "Guede Man Na (Guede Was Here)" (Diabaté) # "Catfish Blues" (Mahal) # "K'an Ben (Let's Get Together)" (Diabaté) # "Take This Hammer" (Mahal) # "Atlanta Kaira" (Diabaté) # "Mississippi-Mali Blues" (Diabaté) # "Sahara" (Mahal)

References

{{Authority control 1999 albums Taj Mahal (musician) albums Albums produced by Joe Boyd Hannibal Records albums