Malian music

YouTube link.

From reader soubriquet's blog Grit in the Gears comes this delightful video.  The musicians are Ali  Farka Toure -

Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré (October 31, 1939 – March 7, 2006) was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent’s most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese’s often quoted characterization of Touré’s tradition as constituting "the DNA of the blues". Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

-and Abdoulaye Diabaté.  I don't know what proportion of this piece is traditional Malian.  The language (Tuareg) certainly, the melody and rhythms probably.  But what fascinates me is how the incorporation of modern instrumentation and electronic modulation makes the music more "accessible" to my ear.

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