SOUNDTRACK: AMADOU & MARIAM-“Wily Kataso,” (Field Recordings, April 11, 2012).
The story of Amadou & Mariam is fascinating. I was really made aware of them in 2018, where I saw their Tiny Desk Concert and learned
Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia met when they were children in Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind. Both had lost their sight when they were young and they began performing together. Later, in the 1980s, they married and began a career together.
This Field Recording [Amadou And Mariam: Finding Mali In Harlem] is six years prior to the Tiny Desk and Amadou & Mariam are on a bench outside The Shrine in New York City.
One major gathering point for Africans and non-Africans alike in this neighborhood is The Shrine, a nightclub and restaurant whose clout belies its small size. So when Malian breakout superstars Amadou and Mariam happened to find themselves with an extra day in New York recently, we invited them up to The Shrine to sing a quick, unplugged set.
There’s not a lot in New York City that looks much like Bamako, the capital city of Mali, but there are pockets uptown where a West African might feel a little closer to home. With increasing numbers of immigrants to Harlem from countries like Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Gambia and beyond, jewelry shops sell the beautiful, bright gold twisted hoop earrings traditionally worn by Fulani women; men stride along the street wearing the elegant, flowing robes called grands boubous; and restaurants sell bissap, the sweet cold drink made from hibiscus flowers that’s beloved across the region.
Amadou plays a simply guitar melody and Amadou starts singing with a repeated refrain of “Baro bom baro negé ta na” which means something like: Away, away, Go home.
The song almost becomes a drone since the music is repeated almost constantly throughout. There is one part near the end where Amadou plays something a little different on the guitar–a kind of solo–but that’s the only variation.
It was just their two powerful voices, Amadou’s blues-soaked guitar and an incredibly catchy melody that lit up The Shrine.
They are mesmerizing and their voices are wonderful.
[READ: January 10, 2017] “Of Window and Doors”
This story was depressing and brutally honest.
It is about Saeed and Nadia and how their (unnamed) city was constantly at war. Neighborhoods fell to militants quite easily. Nadia was living alone and Saeed was with his parents. He continually tried to get her to move in–chastely of course–because it was so unsafe for her to be alone. But she refused. Until Saeed’s mother was killed. Then she agreed to be with them.
The title refers to actual windows and doors. Window were now the border through which death was likliest to come–windows could not stop ammunition and they turned into more shrapnel. Many windows were broken, but it was winter and people needed to keep the cold out.
Saeed’s family did not want to give up the windows, so they covered them with bookcases and furniture to block out the light and visiblity and to make them less vulnerable.
Doors were something different. Rumors began to spread that doors could take you elsewhere–to places far away. Some people claimed to know others who had been through the doors. And that an ordinary door could becomes a special door at anytime. But others believed that this was all superstition.
Saeed and Madia get word of a possible door through which they can escape. The rest of the story concerns their attempts to escape without being captured by militants.
This story was well-written and powerful. It made me really fear for what life would be like if our country ever turned into a lawless land like this. It was really frightening and real.
