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Showing posts with label mali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mali. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Coumba Sidibe 1959 - 2009
. . . has passed to the ancestors.
I got the call with the sad news from a Malian friend today. Coumba was a pioneer, one of the women who helped create what we now know as the Wassoulou style of music. In the 60s and 70s in Mali, music in the Wassoulou region was transforming from sacred and traditional to the popular front, with that transition being led by female singers including Coumba and mali n'goni players who transformed that instrument from 4 strings (doson'goni) to 6 strings (kameln'goni).
I first met Coumba through a friend Mamadou Sidibe, a n'goni player who was living in NYC at the time. He introduced me to Coumba, and with the assistance of Moussa Traore, I produced/promoted/managed a show for Coumba in Cambridge, MA. The show was amazing, and featured Ramata Diakite on backing vocals for Coumba. Mamadou had initially come to the US with Coumba, and for that reason alone, I am grateful to Coumba. However, further, Coumba opened up the path for artists like Ramata Diakite and Oumou Sangare, and now generations of female singers to rise in Mali.
Coumba had been brought back to the front of my mind in late April when some filmmakers sought me out to find Coumba. I sincerely hope that they were able to find her, and talk with her, and film her before she passed. Too often it seems that artists only get their due after they have passed.
Megan Romer has a nice write-up as does Banning Eyre of Afropop Worldwide. Apparently the radio in Mali is all abuzz with the news and playing her music. In that vein - some video below (i'll try and dig up audio from that show in cambridge and/or find my CDs of hers and rip them).
Coumba - Thank You, may your transition to the ancestors be easy, may you continue to lead, may you not be forgotten, and may you rest in peace.
mp3 Downloads from Amazon
mp3 Downloads from eMusic
mp3s from LimeWire Store
------------
From Coumba's bio I wrote up for the show in Cambridge:
Coumba Sidibé was born in 1959 in the Wassoulou region of Mali, West Africa in the village of Koniko. She was born to family of singers and dancers. Her grandparents were some of the most famous singers in the region, and her father was a famous dancer of the Sokomkou masks and secret societies.
When she was 8, Coumba sang in place of her mother at a wedding. Even at this early age, her talent and musicianship was apparent. From this point forward, she was a regular at weddings and other cultural ceremonies. From 1974 until 1977 (from the ages of 15 to 18) she won “Best Female Vocalist” in the National Competitions held in Mali’s capital, Bamako.
She then shifted her attention to a group setting, and became a member of the Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali. Coumba also started performing as the lead singer of her own group in the early 1980’s.
Coumba’s first album was the highest selling album ever in Africa for a female vocalist. Coumba’s significant touring in support of this and subsequent albums brought Wassoulou music and its distinct singing style to the forefront of the world music scene in Africa, Europe and the United States. After a worldwide tour of almost 10 years, Coumba settled down to tour exclusively in France for a number of years. She has since been performing and raising a family in Mali and New York City.
As Wassoulou music has swept across the globe, legendary singers have followed in the footsteps of Coumba, with Oumou Sangare and Ramata Diakité among those citing Coumba’s work and dedication in their own success.
To say that Coumba Sidibé is a legend does not capture the range and depth of her impact. Her robust, tenor vocal stylings brought Mali to the rest of the world.
Other Links:
I got the call with the sad news from a Malian friend today. Coumba was a pioneer, one of the women who helped create what we now know as the Wassoulou style of music. In the 60s and 70s in Mali, music in the Wassoulou region was transforming from sacred and traditional to the popular front, with that transition being led by female singers including Coumba and mali n'goni players who transformed that instrument from 4 strings (doson'goni) to 6 strings (kameln'goni).
I first met Coumba through a friend Mamadou Sidibe, a n'goni player who was living in NYC at the time. He introduced me to Coumba, and with the assistance of Moussa Traore, I produced/promoted/managed a show for Coumba in Cambridge, MA. The show was amazing, and featured Ramata Diakite on backing vocals for Coumba. Mamadou had initially come to the US with Coumba, and for that reason alone, I am grateful to Coumba. However, further, Coumba opened up the path for artists like Ramata Diakite and Oumou Sangare, and now generations of female singers to rise in Mali.
Coumba had been brought back to the front of my mind in late April when some filmmakers sought me out to find Coumba. I sincerely hope that they were able to find her, and talk with her, and film her before she passed. Too often it seems that artists only get their due after they have passed.
Megan Romer has a nice write-up as does Banning Eyre of Afropop Worldwide. Apparently the radio in Mali is all abuzz with the news and playing her music. In that vein - some video below (i'll try and dig up audio from that show in cambridge and/or find my CDs of hers and rip them).
Coumba - Thank You, may your transition to the ancestors be easy, may you continue to lead, may you not be forgotten, and may you rest in peace.
mp3 Downloads from Amazon
mp3 Downloads from eMusic
mp3s from LimeWire Store
------------
From Coumba's bio I wrote up for the show in Cambridge:
Coumba Sidibé was born in 1959 in the Wassoulou region of Mali, West Africa in the village of Koniko. She was born to family of singers and dancers. Her grandparents were some of the most famous singers in the region, and her father was a famous dancer of the Sokomkou masks and secret societies.
When she was 8, Coumba sang in place of her mother at a wedding. Even at this early age, her talent and musicianship was apparent. From this point forward, she was a regular at weddings and other cultural ceremonies. From 1974 until 1977 (from the ages of 15 to 18) she won “Best Female Vocalist” in the National Competitions held in Mali’s capital, Bamako.
She then shifted her attention to a group setting, and became a member of the Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali. Coumba also started performing as the lead singer of her own group in the early 1980’s.
Coumba’s first album was the highest selling album ever in Africa for a female vocalist. Coumba’s significant touring in support of this and subsequent albums brought Wassoulou music and its distinct singing style to the forefront of the world music scene in Africa, Europe and the United States. After a worldwide tour of almost 10 years, Coumba settled down to tour exclusively in France for a number of years. She has since been performing and raising a family in Mali and New York City.
As Wassoulou music has swept across the globe, legendary singers have followed in the footsteps of Coumba, with Oumou Sangare and Ramata Diakité among those citing Coumba’s work and dedication in their own success.
To say that Coumba Sidibé is a legend does not capture the range and depth of her impact. Her robust, tenor vocal stylings brought Mali to the rest of the world.
Other Links:
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
tech in africa (and mali specifically!)
very interesting article on linux in africa, which mentions mali specifically. i have been dealing with this on a very micro level since i helped facilitate a friend buying a OLPC laptop for his daughter. she was in mali, but had been having fun with my laptop when she was here. so he had me buy a OLPC laptop for her, and sent it over. it was fine, however, she was frustrated by the seeming limited nature of the computer. in fact, if she had access to someone who knew linux, she could do tons more with the machine and its long charge, indestructible nature, etc than she probably could do with a crashing windows machine. this article explains the contradictions in the windows/linux problem in much more macro detail.
-------------------
When Linux fails
Posted by Jeremy Allison @ 11:59 am
[The opinions expressed here are mine alone, and not those of Google, Inc. my current employer.]
Recently I was able to visit the Ontario Linux Fest. I love shows like Ontario, as they’re run by amateurs, not by professional show companies. Don’t get me wrong; the professional shows have their place too, but I don’t tend to listen to the other speakers at those shows as I’ve heard most of them before. I’m sure they’ve all heard my talks as well, so instead we tend to hang out in the speaker rooms trying to get the wireless network to work, and swapping airline travel horror stories.
I do listen to the talks at smaller shows. Amateur shows are a labor of love, and it shows. The line up of speakers at the Ontario show was fascinating. One talk in particular caught my eye, by Ian Howard, called “Free and Open Source Software in Africa - Emerging Opportunities for Linux”. The slides from his talk are available here. The talk itself didn’t disappoint, and it was quite shocking, at least to me. It was a positive and upbeat talk about his experiences in Africa promoting Linux and Open Source software. But what he was really teaching us was an understanding of how Linux can fail in places like Africa.
Ian had gone to Africa as part of an organization called Geekcorps, dedicated to promoting IT use in developing nations. He worked on a range of projects in Mali, a West African nation which, like most African nations, is very undeveloped as far as IT is concerned.
Nigerian students power up their laptopsAt first glance, Free and Open Source software should be perfect for places like Mali. The local economy is poor, and average salaries make proprietary software an unimaginable expense for most people there. Yet the place is overrun with copies of Microsoft Windows. This is the toxic effect of what is called software “piracy” of course, although it bears little resemblance to what occurs off the coast of Somalia and is better called copyright infringement, as that’s what it really is. Copyright infringement doesn’t sound as threatening or scary as “piracy” though, does it ? The outcome of this rampant illegal software copying is that Windows is seen as “the first world standard” and any attempt to push a cheaper alternative is strongly resisted. They consider it trying to cheat local people out of getting the same quality of software that is used in the developed world, even though it’s a legal way of getting quality software for free.
Ian’s group first worked on a custom Linux distribution called “Kunnafonix”, designed for local radio stations. Local radio stations are an incredibly important communication tool in Africa, and most of them run on proprietary systems imported from the West, ill-suited for the temperature extremes and power requirements found in rural Africa. Kunnafonix was designed to be easy to use, install and repair, could be run as a live CD, and contained copies of the Wikipedia encyclopedia and the Audacity audio processing software. Many problems in operation could be fixed by doing a simple one-click reinstall to reset the system into a known good state.
However, installation of Kunnafonix was resisted by many of the local organizations they had to work with. The local “computer support person” resented a solution that was so easy to use that it undermined the power and prestige they received by being the person to consult when a Windows computer had problems. It’s amazing to see the myth that Linux is hard to use, install, and support still being propagated in much of the media here in the U.S., when in reality it is resented by Windows administrators due to its ease of use and lesser requirements for professional support.
More successful was their project to extend the Internet into communities by wireless networking, creating innovative ways to extend the range of wireless networks. In the wonderful talk “A New Way to look at Networking” Van Jacobson, one of the creators of the modern TCP protocol, said “the Internet reaches everywhere in the world, it’s just that sometimes the latencies are really, really high”. Everyone in the world has access to the Internet, it’s just sometimes they get to it by bicycling to the next village to view content that someone has delivered to them by burning it onto a CD-ROM. Extending wireless networking to remote villages can cut that latency to the point where Internet access can make a positive difference to people’s everyday lives. They can check the local commodity prices to discover if it’s worth it before undergoing a day long trip to the market for example. This time they were able to teach local technicians to make and repair the wireless network infrastructure they were creating, which made a great difference.
In a region with no software development experience, even Open Source software isn’t going to help bootstrap a computer support or software industry where there is nothing to start with. Even though you can see all of the source code inside a Linux distribution, without local expertise and knowledge to support and maintain it, it might as well be a closed source Windows installation. In fact, as knowledge of Windows is already widespread in such areas, even though it’s due to illicit software copying, Windows may be a better choice until you can break through the network effects keeping it dominant.
What shone though clearly in Ian’s talk was that unless you can partner with the local people, and most importantly help them make money with the new systems you’re trying to get them to use, then you’re just another well-meaning interloper, trying to sell them something that probably won’t work. Making money is the key. Without the opportunity of economic benefits, people in developing countries simply don’t have the time to learn about Free and Open Source software, no matter how much it seems to fit their needs from an external point of view.
Jon “Maddog” Hall’s keynote talk at the Ontario Linux Fest also made this point in a very powerful way. Jon is a wonderfully entertaining speaker, and not afraid of controversy. Showing a picture of a child in the African bush holding a “One Laptop per Child” laptop he said, “I don’t care about this kid.” The audience drew a shocked breath. “He’s screwed,” continued Jon. “Five hundred miles of bush behind him, five hundred miles of bush in front of him. There’s nothing I can do to help here”. Jon flipped the slide to show a Brazilian “favela”, or slum city, with an incredibly dense population, seeming to cling to the side of a nearby hill. He said, “This is where I can help. These kids have electricity. They can get a network connection. I can do something with Open Source and Free Software here”.
Jon isn’t a callous person. He’s just decided to focus his resources on somewhere he knows he can help today. It’s hard to find fault with him for that.
Ian aimed higher, and when you aim higher you have further to fall when you miss. He’s recently completed an MBA, and is concentrating more on the business side of things than the technical. I learned a very valuable lesson from his talk though. Something I, like many Free and Open Source software geeks, often forget whilst concentrating on the technical side of the software we love. Sometimes, technical excellence isn’t enough. Linux and Open Source software can fail badly in the real world not because of technical issues, but because of economic issues. We have to remember the lesson learned in the US election of 1992, and again in 2008. Sometimes, “It’s the economy, stupid !”
-------------------
When Linux fails
Posted by Jeremy Allison @ 11:59 am
[The opinions expressed here are mine alone, and not those of Google, Inc. my current employer.]
Recently I was able to visit the Ontario Linux Fest. I love shows like Ontario, as they’re run by amateurs, not by professional show companies. Don’t get me wrong; the professional shows have their place too, but I don’t tend to listen to the other speakers at those shows as I’ve heard most of them before. I’m sure they’ve all heard my talks as well, so instead we tend to hang out in the speaker rooms trying to get the wireless network to work, and swapping airline travel horror stories.
I do listen to the talks at smaller shows. Amateur shows are a labor of love, and it shows. The line up of speakers at the Ontario show was fascinating. One talk in particular caught my eye, by Ian Howard, called “Free and Open Source Software in Africa - Emerging Opportunities for Linux”. The slides from his talk are available here. The talk itself didn’t disappoint, and it was quite shocking, at least to me. It was a positive and upbeat talk about his experiences in Africa promoting Linux and Open Source software. But what he was really teaching us was an understanding of how Linux can fail in places like Africa.
Ian had gone to Africa as part of an organization called Geekcorps, dedicated to promoting IT use in developing nations. He worked on a range of projects in Mali, a West African nation which, like most African nations, is very undeveloped as far as IT is concerned.
Nigerian students power up their laptopsAt first glance, Free and Open Source software should be perfect for places like Mali. The local economy is poor, and average salaries make proprietary software an unimaginable expense for most people there. Yet the place is overrun with copies of Microsoft Windows. This is the toxic effect of what is called software “piracy” of course, although it bears little resemblance to what occurs off the coast of Somalia and is better called copyright infringement, as that’s what it really is. Copyright infringement doesn’t sound as threatening or scary as “piracy” though, does it ? The outcome of this rampant illegal software copying is that Windows is seen as “the first world standard” and any attempt to push a cheaper alternative is strongly resisted. They consider it trying to cheat local people out of getting the same quality of software that is used in the developed world, even though it’s a legal way of getting quality software for free.
Ian’s group first worked on a custom Linux distribution called “Kunnafonix”, designed for local radio stations. Local radio stations are an incredibly important communication tool in Africa, and most of them run on proprietary systems imported from the West, ill-suited for the temperature extremes and power requirements found in rural Africa. Kunnafonix was designed to be easy to use, install and repair, could be run as a live CD, and contained copies of the Wikipedia encyclopedia and the Audacity audio processing software. Many problems in operation could be fixed by doing a simple one-click reinstall to reset the system into a known good state.
However, installation of Kunnafonix was resisted by many of the local organizations they had to work with. The local “computer support person” resented a solution that was so easy to use that it undermined the power and prestige they received by being the person to consult when a Windows computer had problems. It’s amazing to see the myth that Linux is hard to use, install, and support still being propagated in much of the media here in the U.S., when in reality it is resented by Windows administrators due to its ease of use and lesser requirements for professional support.
More successful was their project to extend the Internet into communities by wireless networking, creating innovative ways to extend the range of wireless networks. In the wonderful talk “A New Way to look at Networking” Van Jacobson, one of the creators of the modern TCP protocol, said “the Internet reaches everywhere in the world, it’s just that sometimes the latencies are really, really high”. Everyone in the world has access to the Internet, it’s just sometimes they get to it by bicycling to the next village to view content that someone has delivered to them by burning it onto a CD-ROM. Extending wireless networking to remote villages can cut that latency to the point where Internet access can make a positive difference to people’s everyday lives. They can check the local commodity prices to discover if it’s worth it before undergoing a day long trip to the market for example. This time they were able to teach local technicians to make and repair the wireless network infrastructure they were creating, which made a great difference.
In a region with no software development experience, even Open Source software isn’t going to help bootstrap a computer support or software industry where there is nothing to start with. Even though you can see all of the source code inside a Linux distribution, without local expertise and knowledge to support and maintain it, it might as well be a closed source Windows installation. In fact, as knowledge of Windows is already widespread in such areas, even though it’s due to illicit software copying, Windows may be a better choice until you can break through the network effects keeping it dominant.
What shone though clearly in Ian’s talk was that unless you can partner with the local people, and most importantly help them make money with the new systems you’re trying to get them to use, then you’re just another well-meaning interloper, trying to sell them something that probably won’t work. Making money is the key. Without the opportunity of economic benefits, people in developing countries simply don’t have the time to learn about Free and Open Source software, no matter how much it seems to fit their needs from an external point of view.
Jon “Maddog” Hall’s keynote talk at the Ontario Linux Fest also made this point in a very powerful way. Jon is a wonderfully entertaining speaker, and not afraid of controversy. Showing a picture of a child in the African bush holding a “One Laptop per Child” laptop he said, “I don’t care about this kid.” The audience drew a shocked breath. “He’s screwed,” continued Jon. “Five hundred miles of bush behind him, five hundred miles of bush in front of him. There’s nothing I can do to help here”. Jon flipped the slide to show a Brazilian “favela”, or slum city, with an incredibly dense population, seeming to cling to the side of a nearby hill. He said, “This is where I can help. These kids have electricity. They can get a network connection. I can do something with Open Source and Free Software here”.
Jon isn’t a callous person. He’s just decided to focus his resources on somewhere he knows he can help today. It’s hard to find fault with him for that.
Ian aimed higher, and when you aim higher you have further to fall when you miss. He’s recently completed an MBA, and is concentrating more on the business side of things than the technical. I learned a very valuable lesson from his talk though. Something I, like many Free and Open Source software geeks, often forget whilst concentrating on the technical side of the software we love. Sometimes, technical excellence isn’t enough. Linux and Open Source software can fail badly in the real world not because of technical issues, but because of economic issues. We have to remember the lesson learned in the US election of 1992, and again in 2008. Sometimes, “It’s the economy, stupid !”
Monday, June 02, 2008
Ramata Diakite - New Album coming!
I have just got a rough mix of a new album from Ramata Diakite! Very exciting. for those of you who don't know, i am managing Ramata, who is an amazingly talented singer from Mali, West Africa. the owner of her US label and i have been talking to her for a while about some new songs to complete an album, and she went ahead and got into a friend of mine's studio in mali (Studio Mali, run by Paul Chandler), and recorded 13 tracks. another friend brought back the ruff mix when he was visiting mali.
so, out of this friendly collaboration come 13 sweet, acoustic, stripped down tracks. i can't wait until we get the masters, and i can start to share some of these tracks. there is a great single in there, and a nice mix of driving acoustic grooves and some trancey vibes as well.
i am getting the lyrics translated so that everyone can understand what she is singing about. to start with, the album is called "Burutumu", which is the name of her great-grandfather's village in Wassoulou. so we start with some deeply personal roots music, and bring it to the world. again, i'm very excited, and can't wait to start sharing. . .
so, out of this friendly collaboration come 13 sweet, acoustic, stripped down tracks. i can't wait until we get the masters, and i can start to share some of these tracks. there is a great single in there, and a nice mix of driving acoustic grooves and some trancey vibes as well.
i am getting the lyrics translated so that everyone can understand what she is singing about. to start with, the album is called "Burutumu", which is the name of her great-grandfather's village in Wassoulou. so we start with some deeply personal roots music, and bring it to the world. again, i'm very excited, and can't wait to start sharing. . .
Friday, April 25, 2008
what about me?
so remember when erich took off for mali in december of 2004? right after a sweet 2 weeks in fiji? it wasn't just to experience 3 red-eyes in a row. it was actually to help film a project, a follow-up to 1 Giant Leap. Mali was the first country on the voyage for the filmmakers, they continued on (without erich, who was just a local fixer in mali), and now almost 4 years later (!) they have something they are broadcasting . . if you are in the UK, you can see it on tv. every where else - the intertoobs must be your viewing medium.
fyi - this first chapter - bombardment features some one string violin (sozu) played by a friend in mali who i set up with the guys - Zoumana Tereta. I was also in the room when they filmed Noam Chomsky, acting as Jamie's chaffeur and guide about town here in boston. ;)
fyi - this first chapter - bombardment features some one string violin (sozu) played by a friend in mali who i set up with the guys - Zoumana Tereta. I was also in the room when they filmed Noam Chomsky, acting as Jamie's chaffeur and guide about town here in boston. ;)
Monday, June 25, 2007
freedom of press under attack in Mali, West Africa
Those of you who know me, know that I love Mali. So I was very sad to read this today, that 5 journalists were arrested and jailed for "insulting the president". Man, if only they'd institute that here in the good ol' us of a. we'd have us a even more overcrowded prison situation, and as a bonus, we could probably put a dent in the racial inequality of the prison-industrial-complex. . . .
anyway, on to the real story here:
Mali papers protest against arrest of journos
June 26 2007 at 01:25AM
Bamako - Mali was without independent newspapers on Monday in protest over the arrest of five journalists and a school teacher arrested on charges of insulting the president.
Only four papers, among them the state daily L'Essor, appeared on the streets of the capital Bamako, compared to about 20 that normally roll off the presses. But those published were not easily available at the usual newsstands.
"There is real solidarity around the jailing of our fellow members. The place for a journalist is in a newsroom and not a prison," said Makan Kone, president of Press House, which groups Malian journalists associations.
The boycott was also heeded by most private radio stations broadcasting in the capital which played only music and repeatedly ran the statement calling for the observation of the "no press day".
The boycott was also heeded by most private radio stations
Authorities in the west African nation have been under pressure to release the six who were arrested over an article on a school essay a school teacher gave to his students about an imaginary president's mistress.
High school students were tasked to write about an imagined female student and prostitute who battles for recognition of her out-of-wedlock child after being made pregnant by a fictitious president.
Four privately-owned newspapers commented on the essay assignment, but state prosecutors said they had offended President Amadou Toumani Toure. The president has not commented since the arrests.
The journalists, who ranged from reporters to newspaper editors, from Info-Matin, Le Republicain, Les Echos and Le Scorpion newspapers, were arrested more than a week ago and were due top appear in court on Tuesday.
If convicted, the defendants risk a six-month prison term and a maximum fine of about $1 200 (about R8 600). - Sapa-AFP
anyway, on to the real story here:
Mali papers protest against arrest of journos
June 26 2007 at 01:25AM
Bamako - Mali was without independent newspapers on Monday in protest over the arrest of five journalists and a school teacher arrested on charges of insulting the president.
Only four papers, among them the state daily L'Essor, appeared on the streets of the capital Bamako, compared to about 20 that normally roll off the presses. But those published were not easily available at the usual newsstands.
"There is real solidarity around the jailing of our fellow members. The place for a journalist is in a newsroom and not a prison," said Makan Kone, president of Press House, which groups Malian journalists associations.
The boycott was also heeded by most private radio stations broadcasting in the capital which played only music and repeatedly ran the statement calling for the observation of the "no press day".
The boycott was also heeded by most private radio stations
Authorities in the west African nation have been under pressure to release the six who were arrested over an article on a school essay a school teacher gave to his students about an imaginary president's mistress.
High school students were tasked to write about an imagined female student and prostitute who battles for recognition of her out-of-wedlock child after being made pregnant by a fictitious president.
Four privately-owned newspapers commented on the essay assignment, but state prosecutors said they had offended President Amadou Toumani Toure. The president has not commented since the arrests.
The journalists, who ranged from reporters to newspaper editors, from Info-Matin, Le Republicain, Les Echos and Le Scorpion newspapers, were arrested more than a week ago and were due top appear in court on Tuesday.
If convicted, the defendants risk a six-month prison term and a maximum fine of about $1 200 (about R8 600). - Sapa-AFP
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
democracy in bamako
It appears that ATT has won again, following the example in Senegal of an incumbent somewhat popular president winning a slight majority and avoiding a runoff election. Here's for peaceful transitions, and continuing declines in corruption and poverty in west africa.
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