ON THE ROAD - Fulani songs & Baye Fall devotional music (field recordings)

00:00 Moussa Thiobely Ba is part of a big griot family and is a young man of 25 years old. His 1 year old baby hangs on his back and a cigarette from his mouth as he improvises on his electric guitar in front of a small modest room that he have built. A tinge of bittersweet nostalgia in every melody he creates.
3:57 It is the evening of the first day I ever came to Hamarabe village to meet the ‘Generation Mbamba’ boys. After all day of having to greet every single person in the village (Fulani custom, or else I will appear as impolite), taste everyone’s Lidi et Maaro and a long musical programme of traditional music, I’m about to get ready to go to sleep. The sun has set and there are no lights in the village, but the boys use their phone torches to unpack the amps to which they plug in the electric guitars. They tell me that now is the time they will actually play their music and I abandon my plans to go to sleep.
7:30 Tidiane Thiam plays Dannibe (released originally on Sahel Sounds Records). His neighbour comes into the room, sits on the bed and joins in for a soft sing along. It is the first time I meet Tidianne, when visiting Podor town, he invites me to stay in his family house for a couple of days. I ask Tidiane the meaning of Dannibe in Poulaar, he tells me it means ‘voyageur, comme toi’ (a traveller, like you). Eventually Tidiane’s and the neighbour’s voices entwine, as most Poulaar music is - a communal, shared experience. In Poulaar language ‘sleep’ and ‘travel’ are two very similar words and I don’t know which of the two I am now doing.
14:40 We are shielding from the midday sun in a room that is used as a Taylor’s workshop in the village while waiting for the lunch to be ready. Moussa starts to sing.
18:12 Baye Fall called Lamp sings a devotional praise. Lamp is a kind and generous man with an impressive set of dreadlocks who lets us put up our tents in his family house yard in a small town of Casamance.
19:14 In between the rainy days, we take out some rugs and some instruments to the green outside the village with “Generation Mbamba” family band. Fouta is normally a burnt out desert, but rain has brought in all this vegetation. All cousins take turns to play their songs while I record in front of them. This one is by Moussa Thiobely Ba.
27:27 Samba Ba is a young griot, a cousin of Moussa. He makes a living playing his electric guitar and singing praisals when people hire him to come over. He records his performance on his phone and after sends it to me via Whatsapp, so that Fouta Toro is always with me.
32:04 I get woken up by the first call to prayer at dawn in Maata-Moulaana (Mauritania), a semi-autonomous village following Sufi Islamic order. Sahara desert all around, I press my phone to record it and drift back to sleep.
36:17 Laye sings a devotional Baye Fall song by the fire. “To desire the fruit from a plant whose seeds you have not sown, is going to make your mind restless. We, the incomplete beings deprived from Devine, must agree to ask God”.
41:02 Bamba Tokara Bamba from ‘Generation Mbamba’ - a griot family band sings his song about a Sufi Saint Amadou Bamba. This catchy song has been trending in the surrounding villages inhabited by nomadic Fulani groups and whenever is sung, attracts crowds of people joining in for a sing a long and some serious clapping.
44:59 Hamet Thiobely Ba plays Hoddu.
48:04 Devotional chant is blasting through the distorted speaker in Touba.
49:31 WhatsApp from Samba Thiobely Ba.
50:40 Dahim is a friend in Mauritania, and spends his days between Nouakchott city and the desert outside of it, where he takes care of his father’s goats. Dahim is an expert on Mauritanian music, he collects the rare recordings and studies their verses. This is the beginning verse of his favourite traditional track.
51:47 Me and Dahim listen to an old Mauritanian track, Dahim is talking me through it.
53:24 Samba Ba plays the traditional Fulani instrument Hoddu and Alessane starts reading a praisal from a poetry book by Mamadou Samba Diop. Alessane always carries this one book with him wherever he goes, maybe taking pride in being able to read so well, as illiteracy is very much prevalent in the villages.
55:53 Moussa and Lamp start singing a devotional song while sharing a spliff on a rooftop of Toubab Dialaw village.
1:00:37 A Fulani griot of Ado village, named Abdurahman Diallo, plays me a traditional riff while he shares some insights on life while playing the Hoddu. He says “life is like a film, everyone has got their role to play”…
1:05:43 A snippet from the rain season celebration performance in Hamarabe village. Ladies of the griot family sit in the middle of a crowd and sing an improvised traditional Fulani song. The speakers distort the sound into some psychedelic desert scream dream. Animal herding is the main trade in the village, cows and goats roam freely and every now and then a large horned cow charges through the crowd, but nobody seems too bothered.