The streets of Bamako, Mali

Becoming Shaka Diabate, Stories from Mali

By Sean Noonan

Since the release of my album Stories to Tell in 2007, I have developed a strong passion for storytelling and capturing new stories. Visiting Africa with its vivid culture of music and oral traditions has become a yearning over the years and was finally made possible through a grant from Meet the Composer. So on December 17, 2008 I found myself soaring over the Sahara desert at around 3 am and after being awakened from a deep sleep I peered out of my window feeling the descent through the dark smoky clouds above Bamako, Mali. Walking off the red-eye express I felt the dry Sub-Saharan breeze with its fruitful climate that I would have to learn to befriend.

Probably no other place in West Africa has a more abundant history of musical traditions than Mali. I was traveling with my fellow Brewed by Noon member, the griot Abdoulaye “Djoss” Diabate, to Bamako and to his native village of Kela. I never thought my experience would turn out to be such a rich musical pilgrimage of living and playing music with a griot family, one that any ethnomusicologist would dream about. Our main destination was Kela, which is at the heart of the history of Mali and the center of music and language of the Mandingo people. It has a small “Library of Mande” and is currently one of the few villages in West Africa that have the right to continue to relate the epic story of the emperor Sunjata (Sundiata) Keita, who founded the Malian Empire in the 13th century and whose codified rules of society are still very much alive.

Many people believe the story of Sunjata was a miracle of God. Sunjata's father, Naré Maghann Konaté, was a Mandinka king. While holding court he received a divine hunter who predicted that if Konaté married an ugly woman, she would give birth to a son that would become a powerful king. So when one day he was presented with a rather hideous, hunchbacked woman named Sogolon, he remembered what the hunter has told him and took her as his second wife. But by the time she gave him a son, Sunjata, the child was weak and couldn't walk for years.
In the meantime Kontaté's older son from his first wife, Dankaran Toumani Keita, had become king and didn't treat Sunjata and his mother kindly. One day after a the king insulted his mother, she got angry and told her son to finally get up and do something. So Sunjata asked a blacksmith for an iron rod he could use to pull himself upright and walk. Nevertheless, the king drove them both into exile in the Mena kingdom.
At home, the Madinka kingdom was threatened by the evil sourcer king of Sosso, Soumaoro Kanté. He conquered the kingdom, in turn forcing Dankaran Toumani Keita into exile. For the Mandinka people, a time of opression had started. In their hopeless situation, they sent for Sunjata, who in the meantime had created a coalition of adjoining kingdoms to fight Soumaoro Kanté. He was beaten in the Battle of Kirina 1235 and never seen after.
So Sunjata became the new king of the Madinka people and the first ruler of the Malian Empire. But not only the origin of this West African country lays in this story. They say, the evil Sosso king had a balafon with magical powers which was stolen by Sunjata's griot, Balafasseke Kouyate, and brought to the new empire. This is believed to be the origin of the Mande griot tradition of balafon playing, and it is believed this very balafon has been kept by the Kouyate family to this day in the village of Niagassola in Guinea.

Kela, Mali

The small village of Kela is made up of a few families that include the Diabates. Abdoulaye was raised in the Mande tradition in a large griot family of fourteen siblings. The Diabate family has practiced the griot tradition of being musicians and storytellers for hundreds of years, ever since the founding of the great Malian Empire. Griots (or jelis) in Mande society serve as West African poets, praise singers, wandering musicians, and storytellers. Essentially these musicians are walking history books, preserving ancient stories and traditions through song. Their inherited traditions have been passed down through the generations. Their name, “Jeli,” means “Blood” in the Mandinka language. They were said to have deep connections to spiritual, social, or political powers, as music is associated with such. Griots live off the notion that they know everything about the “jatigi” (nobles ones and kings) and that without them the preservation of their legacy would be at risk. They serve almost as the memory of mankind, but I was later cautioned that my fellow storytellers in Africa have a reputation for embellishing and even manipulating their messages. Later I learned from my experiences with Abdoulaye that griot history and actual history are not the same thing.

On top of all of this great Malian folklore, its music carries distinct rhythms, and its use of melody is often influenced by bluesy pentatonic modes. As a jazz drummer I was in heaven being able to play drums with my griot friends. At one particular session there was a young boy, maybe ten years old, and when he played it sent chills up my spine and brought tears to my eyes. His level of proficiency was something I was able to attain at moments myself, but what mesmerized me was how he knew every transition or hit the band would play. African music often flows organically, and its tight arrangements are something usually left to professionals, but in this situation the boy heard, played, memorized and knew what and when the other members of the band were doing all the time. There was an older man who also played drum kit, and while the boy played I watched him sit behind the drum set looking like he was being put in his place. After he played I quickly introduced myself, but my limited French didn't allow for much of a conversation. When it was my turn to play the boy too stood over me watching every stroke I made as if it was the first time he’d witnessed a foreign person connect with his African style. I convinced myself that I have to go back to Mali with Brewed by Noon and ask this child to join us a guest.

Members of the Diabaté family

Another significant event was when I was unexpectedly given the name Shaka Diabate by the Diabate family. This occurred on our last evening in Kela when the Diabates had me experience numerous family musical rituals. I found out later that being accepted into an African family and given the name Shaka was no insignificant gesture at all but a symbol that they truly accepted me as one of them. My new friend Zoumana Diabate said that I looked like a white man from outside but inside I had the heart of a griot. Wherever I walked in the village I would hear loud cries of “Shaka, Shaka, Shaka Diabate.” I guess I really was at least an honorary griot since I felt like I was beginning to become a part of them and when I came back home the deep honor still lingered.

Bushtaxi in Bamako

When I created the album Boxing Dreams the main compositional concept was to collect folklore and create original stories, experimenting with having Abdoulaye and Susan McKeown communally recreate the compositions in line with the wandering folk music theory, which states that music evolves by being passed from person to person or place to place. After traveling to Africa I understood that music is probably the most sociable of art forms, and realized that a large part of African music and storytelling takes place among large groups of people. Knowing the history of kings and leaders is the main topic that griots discuss, and it is what they pay tribute to in their music. Experiencing how griots serve the noble ones, and learning about all the interesting characters of the Malian empire, I realized that it was an opportunity for me to recreate this epic using the wandering folk music theory. So I documented countless songs and made note of their source and which king or patron the music was paying tribute to. Having returned to New York, my goal is to apply the wandering folk music concept to myself, and create modern interpretations of the tales from the Malian empire.

After drinking a few of my favorite traditional gun-powdered African teas, I became quite inspired to try something original and to present the entire story in a format similar to a performance by Les Ballets Africains (the national dance company of Guinea).  I wouldn't dare try to create a dance ballet, but I thought about how Les Ballets Africains uses form and melody to symbolize certain characters and events. My vision is to create a multi-movement composition that would be a modern interpretation of the Sunjata Keita epic. The piece would use sub-compositions to symbolize all the various characters that were a part of the founding and collapse of the Malian empire. Of course, for me to create a composition using the wandering folk music theory I need to be true to who I am. Obviously I come from a different, distant place and time, and this will impact my overall aesthetic. I also can’t ignore my Irish heritage and how it will indirectly influence the creation of the composition in a modern western context. In fact this experiment will be similar in some ways to Boxing Dreams, and since “becoming Shaka Diabate” I continue to study the ingredients of my Afro-Celtic brew. I also would like to thank again Meet the Composer and Abdoulaye Diabate and his family for making this new chapter in my artistic career possible.

Please stay tuned since "Becoming Shaka Diabate" will apart of a complete story I am writing on my memoirs in Mali.

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