Episode 66: Oumou Sangaré's "Moussolou"

The name "Oumou" derives from an Arabic word meaning "mother of." It is associated with dignity, wisdom, and maternal strength. Southern Mali’s Oumou Sangare has come to embody her namesake for millions around the world, and it all began when she was just 19 years old, channeling the magical music of hunters through her powerful and purposeful voice and creating a moment that captivated an entire country. Hers is a story everyone should know.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, or Mastodon (@tunedig) for daily listening recommendations, and check out more episodes at tunedig.com.

Episode Transcript

Kyle (00:00):
Today we're talking about Moussolou by Oumou Sangare.
I'll say right off the rip.
Hopefully the music is selfevidently good on this one.
When you drop the proverbial needle.
So hopefully within a couple of minutesof buying the ticket and taking the
ride, you don't need much convincing.
We will talk about the music.

(00:21):
One thing that I think is reallyinteresting here, and this is
probably Western White Dude 1 0 1,like, oh, I'm into world music now.
Obviously not the first non-Westernartist that we've ever covered.
Also, not the first person who has gottenscooped up in the, big western bucket

(00:41):
of capital W, capital M world music.
You know, I'm, I'm an ambassadorfor whatever flag at the UN
representative of my country type stuff,

Cliff (00:52):
This playlist starts with cashmere by Led Zeppelin.

Kyle (00:57):
right?
But, you know, we've doneRavi, we've done Fela.
point to a country, throw a dart atthe map, and it's the biggest person
from that landmass to ever make music.
Arguably also the case here, but I, Ithink what's really interesting about
this is even more than either of theother artists that we covered in the

(01:21):
same vein where I think they havethis really interesting biography.
It's just neat to learn about somebodywho's so famous that you don't really know
anything about, and then they have thiscrazy story the risk of being like she's
a representative of the whole country.
She's from, she is in fact quiteproud and quite on the record as

(01:41):
being like the number one ambassadoro people from her country who are also
famous as a very fertile crescent.
Of music exported to the world.
Everybody else is proud of her as well.
she's like in the DNA of this placeand has sort of made a point of
that as she's evolved as an artist.

(02:02):
yes, great to talk the music.
Great to talk about heras a vocalist 'cause Wow.
But also this is just a straight up feedyour curiosity, feed your head type.
Okay.
I found something.
And it's teaching me not onlythings that I don't know about
music, but it's teaching me thingsI don't know about the world.
So you can just like, kindof become a better human
ostensibly by getting into Oumou.

Cliff (02:23):
Hopefully this will be a moment in both of those ways,
so musically and music adjacent.
Hopefully this will be another one ofthose moments, maybe like Robbie or
some other records that we've done thatare maybe a little bit more off the
traditionally western beaten path, andyou listen to something you thought was

(02:44):
kind of kitschy or had some barrier toentry that had to be like educational
or something for you to appreciateit and instead you're able to like.
I love when you can like lock into arecord that's like capital I important
when you maybe haven't thought of it thatway or tried to position it that way.

(03:05):
Like we get to do that a lot becauseof the way that we end up choosing
albums and episodes for this podcast.
But like, it's the greatestgift to keep giving people.
It's like one of the undercurrentsfor the rest of this episode will
be like, it's about though actually,
everything is super seriousfor a really good reason.
And on top of it, here we are given thegift of, knocks on wood, uh, uh, a a

(03:30):
minimally problematic artists to talkabout which we don't always have with
some of the people that you mentionedpreviously, including fellow coie.
this one was like every singletime I listened to it on top of
the last time, I loved it more.
I saw something I didn't see before.
I heard something new.
I cared about something different.

(03:52):
I wrote something down.
I paid attention in a different way.
Like something about this music isgripping in a way that is shocking.
and, one of those rare gifts I thinkwe get from being in a sense we get to
sort of roll into this stuff half blindsometimes, even if we know a fair amount

(04:12):
about the genre or the history of it.
But it's even like, you know, somebodywho likes the blues but had never heard
Sun House before, and you drop thatin front of 'em for the first time
and they're like, this is that thing.
But it's also fundamentally different.
I'm like locked into this ina way I didn't expect to be.

Kyle (04:28):
That's right.
I, the journey with an artist thatI don't know anything about is
always one of guilt at this pointwhere we know so many artists.
In the tens of thousands.
and we know a lot about a lot of them.
And so to run across one where I'mlike totally cold, I feel guilty and
always feel like to do them justice,I gotta play a lot of catch up.

(04:51):
So we scoured through like50 plus sources for this one.
and what surprised me was the ease,you know, something that started
off so unfamiliar on its face.
I don't know what she's saying.
the rhythm feels fourish, likeshuga, but it is not right.

(05:15):
It's a rhythm that feels very naturalto them, but not necessarily to me.
the instruments sound a bit like thingsthat I know and love, but not quite.
so barriers to entry,ostensibly immediately.
But then what really surprised mewas how quickly all that melted away.
And it felt like a thing thatI'd known for a long time.

(05:39):
And I think that is, you know, m NorthAfrican music being such a Rosetta Stone
for so much global music, certainly all ofWestern you know, there, there's something
in the code of it that makes it familiar.
But even with that, likethey're not all created equal.

(06:02):
it's not trying really hard toshow its Western This, like some
of the electric tore blues is nowrespectfully, and it's not Alan Lo Maxey.
That it is a, a document to be otheredand odd at a little, you know, rustic
in its quality and like Nat Geoobserve it in its natural habitat.

(06:23):
Like it's just good.
it's recorded really, really well.
it's somewhat in the past,somewhat very in the present.
it's just a record that like,makes all the right choices.
It's really more like, I'm, I'm sorryto make this comparison, but it's
really like Rumors or Hotel California.

(06:44):
It's a pristine recording where like, if Idon't personally love everything about it,
and in this case I do I wouldn't changea thing because it's a perfect document
of what it is and is trying to be.

Cliff (06:57):
Whatever year it sounds like, it doesn't sound like 1990.

Kyle (07:02):
Yeah.
Take five guesses.
I I should have been like, rerewind this 10 seconds before
you know what year it came out.
Take five guesses when it was recorded.
And you'll be wrong about all of them.

Cliff (07:14):
I will go ahead and pres spoiler something that helped me
figure out why it sounded so weird.
In an interesting way and why it didn'tsound like it belonged in the nineties.
The, and I'm sure we'll touch on thissome, the insistence on using acoustic
instruments almost entirely combinedwith the modernization of production

(07:41):
as it had accumulated up until 1990,which started making things sound good.
Like even when recordingacoustic instruments.
So you've got like a real sense ofisolation and quality sound recording of
those acoustic instruments that you'reused to hearing in, in older recordings.
But like fundamentally, like the bassguitar sounds like I'm in church.

(08:03):
And like that is the thing to me thatlike, once I sort of heard it, it felt
like things fell back into place and Iunderstood a little bit more of what I was
hearing and why it sounded so specificallydifferent In different contexts and in
different headphones and all that stuff.
Like this is very much afollow the bass record.
And I'll make some of thesereferences in some of the songs

(08:28):
specifically as we'll talk about them.
But like, there's a realness to the bassthat we hear from people like John Paul
Jones a lot where there's just, there'slike a real bounciness to it and like
all, like all of that production is soperfectly compressed down onto the bass
guitar and how good it can sound in 1990.

(08:50):
And then just laid on top of like aspectrum of sounds that you're used
to hearing across a 50 year range.
And just for whatever reason, tome, continues to make it sound
sonically just like outside of time.
it has such an interesting combinationthat I haven't heard very much
since then and gives this like.

(09:11):
Especially the sensation of layeringon top of, maybe someone we're
listening to understands all ofthe words as spoken immediately,
but most of us are gonna have theexperience of not knowing the language.
And like that combination of hearingthat sound that way with actually not
understanding very much about the words atall, especially until you look into them

(09:32):
further and you start to really get it.
it is a, an actually unique sensation.
And that's itself a unique thing to say.
As many records as we listento actively and on purpose,

Kyle (09:44):
Tell me more about what you mean.
What comes to mind when you saythe base sounds like church to you.

Cliff (09:52):
Specifically by church, I mean like the churches that would
honor the drums and the bass guitar.
So black churches and specificallythe way that they like EQ music,
like drums and bass are loud as hellon purpose clear, really opened up
across like a whole dynamic range.
Like those are the twomain things you can hear.

(10:13):
And everything else is sort of like detailthat goes along with it because all it's
doing is really a rhythm section and thena platform for everyone to sing on top of.
And then for a whole lot of people to singalong with the people who are singing.
And that's like, that's how it sounds.
So I'm glad you asked me, like that'sreally specifically what I mean by it.
Like the base is so clear at everymoment that you could pick it up and

(10:37):
lift it out from everything else.
And, and it's almost like when youdo separate it out, you notice how.
The remaining sounds and instruments aresort of mixed in together differently.
Doing a little bit more wall of soundtype stuff, like there are even moments
on this record I would call psychedelic,which is a really wild fucking thing to

(10:57):
say relative to the instruments used.
But like even in those moments, likeall of the non bass instruments are
sort of wall of sounding or interactingwith each other, and the bass continues
to be this sort of pristine thing thatfeels almost spatial, like, almost like
it's sitting in the middle of the roomthe whole time and everything else is

(11:18):
sort of like a walking tour around it.

Kyle (11:20):
I love that.
and I'll also say, as a person who has aharder time dialing into or sustaining my
attention on what one instrument is doingfor a long period of time, or how multiple
instruments are interacting and thinkingabout the sort of counterpoint between the
two for a long period of time, this recordalso works purely on the level of vocals.

(11:43):
So like you can not notice, like me,what's happening instrumentally for 20
plus listens and um, U'S voice, I. Iscompelling enough and the performance,
the delivery of the way she interactswith the two background singers is
captivating enough that there's enoughto sustain you just on that level.

(12:06):
And by the way, thisis a very lean record.
Six tracks just half an hour.
it's very economical.
So you, find yourself back atthe top of track one way before
you would think that you would.
because it is sort of easy to getinto I'm thinking about the other
times where there have been longsongs and sort of sustained beat.

(12:31):
Certainly we talked about that with Raviand the idea of a raga that could stretch.
For literally hours in a direction.
But also thinking about can, I knowwe talk about can so much on this
podcast, but just as a counterpointfor why is a thing holding my
attention over a long period of time.
And here it's not 'cause of the length ofthe material, which I find interesting.

(12:53):
It is pretty rock and roll inthat it cycles back to the top
of the thing really quickly.
so I think that contributes to thefeeling of poppiness that you, you
know, you, like you said, it's bops.
It's, let's see, the longest track onthis record is the opening track is
6 46 and everything clocks in at fourand a half or five minutes, which is

(13:16):
not, three minute rockabilly song.
But like that's, that's lean forsomething that like, sort of gets in a
groove and for the most part on a trackstays on a musical idea the whole time.

Cliff (13:30):
They're not structured like Western songs anyway, so they're not
gonna like click with the three minuteformat that we're used to, to begin with.

Kyle (13:37):
Right.

Cliff (13:38):
And yeah, that's it's pretty impressive that they'll never go too
far out into their own ideas, butthey do go pretty far out into their
own ideas, including I'm sure wewill mention several of these songs.
And again, with, uh, all the intention,uh, positive intention and sincerity
in our hearts, we'll pronounce thingsas best that we can but also need to

(14:02):
be able to refer to specific songsbecause holy hell, these things are like
burners and then they like hide coolshit in the middle of a very relatively
long song, uh, which is awesome.
But, uh, "Woula Bara Diagna",so like three minutes and
40 seconds into this song.
They like shift out of a drone intothis like wild kind of rhythmic

Kyle (14:27):
I called it a beat switch,

Cliff (14:29):
Yeah, well, and they, they'll do transitions that remind me of I,
I'll give some good reasons for theLed Zeppelin references, specifically
John Paul Jones in the future.
But like, they're not the only ones.
Like even, um, like the Allman Brothers,we talked about the turn on Jessica
at the end, like, That idea of like,I'm going to have a one time like

(14:51):
flourished transition from one thinginto another thing is itself really cool.
But then here to like, I love thatwe got in a, a sugar reference in the
first five minutes of this podcast.
Thank you.
But to that point, like they signaltheir own backbeats differently
in us in a way that MGA signalsits own backbeats differently.

(15:15):
And so to that point, like not onlydoes it take a few minutes for you to
sort of get the Jay-Z head bop goingon every song when it starts, but
when they shift around, it takes youa minute to actually catch what it
is that they're doing and the actualrhythmic shift that's happening.
'cause sometimes it feelslike they're slowing down or
speeding up and they're not.

(15:36):
And like those, several of those arehidden two, three, and four minutes deep
into songs, it made me I love thingsthat reward the like, it, it's like
I'm the musical equivalent of someonewho like, loves the lore of a thing.
I'm just like, yeah.
But if I go through every loot box thatexists in this world, can I actually

(16:00):
find the one box that has the secretthing that has the note in it that
makes me really happy that I did this?
And maybe I'll tellsomebody else about it.
But mostly it'll just be rewarding tome 'cause I give a shit and like this
music is full of that in a way that Ididn't even know to anticipate when we
started listening to it this heavily.

Kyle (16:19):
"Woula Bara Diagna" is my favorite song on the record.
translates to cruel nostalgia.
I also read that it's about, in acomment by the way, there's a lot of
really helpful comments from non-nativeEnglish speakers on the videos across
the constellation of content out there.
it translates to my native landas far from me, and it talks
about adventurers and adventures.

(16:40):
She puts herself in the place ofthose who are far from their lands,
villages, cities, families, andshe salutes all of those people.
The adventure is not easy.
the world is so low, but full of laughterand joy, and she thinks and pays tribute
to people who are on the adventurefor all the good that they have done.
there's a lot of.
Text and subtext, and you can findthe text, but there's a whole nother

(17:03):
layer of subtext that I'm not reallyclued into, but it makes me wanna
keep studying this record and talkingto people from the region to get a
little more clued in to the, the powerof language and the nuance there.
It makes the word nerd in me gocrazy, but also it's my favorite, uh,

(17:24):
for lack of a better word, I guesshook the no, the little descending
note that she sings over and over.
I found getting stuck in my head,to the level of a TikTok audio.
Um, and There's a really goodbalance of sort of storytelling,
narrative type lyricism.

(17:48):
And then coming back to the hookat interesting intervals, um, and
playing the two on each other.

Cliff (17:54):
So I think probably one thing we ought to talk about that's like culturally
interesting that I helped set, I thinkhelps set the stage for why this record
is important if you don't know about it.
But also if you generically know aboutit, like it's time to know the details.
Like the story of everythinghere is rewarding.

(18:18):
not just umu the artist,which that is true of.
Um, but Mus Lu the albumspecifically, we both.
Kyle and I individually came to theconclusion that oo is punk as fuck.
like

Kyle (18:33):
Absolutely.

Cliff (18:33):
everything here is incredibly aligned with even, like, I I would say
there's a lot of parallels with thecramps that we talked about recently.
Like there are many very obvious dotsalong this timeline that are gonna
help illuminate why we feel that way.
But one of them to kick off with is, youknow, you mentioned this sort of localness

(18:59):
or region ness of this record and in thecountry of Mali specifically, this record.
So Mus Lu, the album sold aquarter, a a million cassettes.
There in just there locally beforeit ever escaped, so to speak, that

(19:19):
region and became the larger likesensation that it would become.
So like, this isn't just like, oh, thismusic is interesting because it is odd or
singular or came from this very particularand unique set of circumstances.
Like, no, like this is a straightup banger on every possible

(19:42):
level of human existence.
And everyone who's gottentheir hands on it has gone.
Yep.
This rules to the point to where it issort of like every detail, like fleshes
this out, a quarter of a million cassettesis itself super wild to begin with.
And there were a bunch of quotesfrom folks who were just like, this
record was everywhere where I lived.

(20:05):
But even on top of that, like I said,like every little detail, every finder
detail kind of gets you excited aboutthe premise, the last song on the record.
So the final thing on a cassette,which again, for, for the people
who maybe aren't familiar withcassettes, there aren't convenient
ways to skip through the tracks.

(20:26):
So

Kyle (20:27):
The least convenient of all the formats,

Cliff (20:30):
yes, it's, it's almost a terrible way to listen to music really.
so for the last track to be the mostpopular on a format that is itself hard to
skip to the last track on to begin with,sort of helps you fill in details like.
People were just playing this thingstart to finish over and over again in

(20:53):
public settings when they were together.
Like this was the song of the SummerTimes 10 or times a hundred to a
level that we would probably havea hard time conceptualizing now.
'cause we don't even listen to musicthe way that we used to in the nineties.
And this was a concentrated versionof an album taking off in a community

(21:14):
at a time where we listened torecords out loud and in public.

Kyle (21:17):
The closest analog that I could think of from our lifetimes was Selena,
and I don't think that's anywhere.
Same order of magnitude.
There's so many cultural differencesand, and whatever that just make
that a whole different deal.
But I, you know, maybe in North Americathat starts to give you sort of a

(21:38):
sense, but it's deeply imperfect.
I would love other, analogsfrom people who are listening.
there's a great, I guess it's kindof a paper, kind of a research paper
that an ethnomusicologist named LucyDuran wrote and then shared part of it
is an in full broadcast on BBC threefrom 2007 on their world music show.

(22:00):
and I just like, I basicallyread through this whole PDF with
tons of citations and stuff.
She quotes another ethnomusicologist,Heather Maxwell, who was in Mali in the
early nineties as a Peace Corps volunteer.
And this really brought homesome of the nuances of, I guess,
the penetration of this album.
I recall the impact of Mus Lu.
I was living in a rural villagecalled INS in Southeastern Mali.

(22:24):
which we can talk a littlebit more about places in Mali.
'cause I think that's interesting too.
Since there was no electricity inthis village, battery operated radio
and cassette players were our onlyconnection to the capital city Bamako
in the outside world, people of allages, especially men, gender's going be
another thing and know we will talk aboutcarry their radios wherever they went.

(22:45):
In the beginning of 1990, a newsinger called Umo S Ray suddenly sees
the national airwaves and floodedthe music cassette market that
came into the village every Friday.
So new release kinda just gotlike drop shipped into a place.
From that point on until 1991 when myterm of service was over in this village,
mus Lu had become a household item andher songs were played so often that

(23:08):
I'd memorized the songs and melodiesalong with my friends and neighbors.
There was another story you said,there were lots of quotes about
that phenomenon specifically.
There was another one that itwas basically like it was coming
out of boom boxes and vehicles sofrequently in so many places that
you could like hear a snippet of itin the ether and be able to sing it.

(23:29):
and like try to think about a singletime in your life where it's been
like a Coca-Cola commercial where youhear a thing out in public and you
recognize it and start singing it, butlike everybody around you, in spite
of how little you may have in commonwith them, can also do that thing.

(23:51):
we have gotten a littlebit of that in Atlanta.
Like anywhere an outcast song comeson in Atlanta, you get that feeling.
they've gone diamond inside the perimeterin a TL, but 250,000, quarter of a
million in a pretty small country.
I think the capital city has 4 millionpeople, maybe so, like more than one

(24:18):
in 10 people in the city, let's say.
And lots of people in therural areas had this tape.
that's just sort of an unfathomablelevel of cultural reach and connection.

Cliff (24:29):
And.
The tape itself, which again,just such a cool little cultural
moment of things that we no longerhave for good and bad reasons.
But the physicality of the cassette meantstick with me here, that you had a literal
physical thing to carry around with you.
You cannot carry infinitycassettes with you.

(24:52):
And so therefore, just like wedid when we had our CD sleeves,
and even though we had hundreds ofthem, it was stupid and cumbersome.
And then we would have a smaller versionthat was like, well, I can't bring my
big one, but I got the smaller one.
that's for the real shit.
where I'm not just showing offhow many I've got, but I've got
like a specific thing to do.
So cassettes are gonnatake up even more space.

(25:15):
So carrying it, caring aboutit at all is its own decision.
But then on top of it someonewho was, in their own right.
An extraordinary musician out of Mali.
Ali Farka was carrying the cassettewith him when he was around, uh, Mick

(25:39):
Gold, the label head from World Circuit,which then led to a conversation about
like, who is this and what's going on?
Like, well, this is the biggest thinggoing on right now, you should hear
about this, which snowballs intodownstream this album becoming a thing
that we could all hear and Umu herselfbecoming, you know, more of an artist

(25:59):
who would go on to record things.
Like even the story of how she getsconvinced to record more things
in the future are all just like.
When we talk about it being punk, there'sso much like sincerity in every moment
of the story of like, I'm making kickass music because I was good at it and

(26:22):
my parents taught me how, basically.
And I learned how to use music to givemyself enough self-sustaining momentum
to where I could decouple myself fromthe forces that oppressed me enough
to be able to say it back to otherpeople who are still under the thumb
of those oppressive forces and liketurn that into a cycle and momentum

(26:44):
that becomes a cultural phenomenon.
And just like every sort of detail,of her story and specifically of this
album, turning into something that wewould be able to hear in 2025 at all.
It's just like a deeply rewardingthing to look into at every step.
We don't always have.
The opportunity, I think, tosay that about every story.

(27:06):
Um, some albums are very, veryinteresting, but you also are like, yeah,
I've had enough of this story actually.
This is very sad or scaryor upsetting or whatever.
And it's good to acknowledgeit, but you know.
Okay.
Good context for the music.
I'll carry that with me.
This one is just like, I wanna learneverything and I'm gonna keep learning

(27:26):
everything because everything thatI learned keeps sending me back
into the depth of this music andwhat it meant, like culturally, I.

Kyle (27:35):
I hadn't really thought about it in terms of the story is joyful, like
every aspect of the story is joyful.
And that's not to say there wasn't painand grief and trial and tribulation in her
life, but one of the first words that cameto mind, like when I was doing the sort of
cold listening exercise was charismatic.

(27:59):
Somebody mentioned she's six feet talland there's something so self evidently
before you see a picture of her or watchan interview with her, there's something
about her voice that is very magnetic.
It's not too, like, it's notAretha Franklin e necessarily.
It perhaps could be, but it's notgonna like knock you on your ass

(28:19):
directly while you're listening.
But it's also not coy.
she finds a perfect pocket.
And can go up and down a prettygood distance dynamically.
And I don't mean like note scale,although she can do that too.
there's something about her commandof her notes and of her lyrical

(28:41):
delivery that indicates a command.
I have my thing, and this is a debutalbum, like she'd been performing
her whole life at this point,but there's so much command that
I think is really interesting.
I do love that Ali Farka charecarried around physical cassettes.
It reminds me of one of my favoriteapocryphal rock and roll stories
that like when Nirvana was reallybig, Dave Grohl bought copies

(29:04):
of Kyuss' Blues for the Red Sun.
every time he found it in a storyand would just give it to people.
And it's just like evangelizing,like this is my favorite record.
I love an artist.
Do that.
Like I. Ali said to Nick from WorldCircuit, she's the big hit in Bamako
right now and she's my favorite singer.
Watching artists be fans of otherartists is a force multiplier,

(29:26):
and I really, really love that.
I do want to click in also on the howshe was convinced thing, because the
joy part reminds me of Missy Elliot.
There's so much about the two of themthat seems alike, just like a, a natural,
almost alien level, a fully formed talentthat didn't need to be recognized, but it

(29:49):
was inevitable that it would be becauseit's so good and it's so joyful and
therefore is so abundant in its nature.
So I think this is from theliner notes of the reissue.
I. From like 2016 or something, Ithink, when Umu opened the doors to
the fundamental JBZ studios in Abijah,which is in co devo and on the Ivory

(30:10):
Coast to the neighboring country torecord the six tracks of Mu Salu, the
young woman was far from naive at 21.
She had already toured Europe with theJo Liva percussions ensemble along to
Monte ate and had already secured fullfinancial autonomy, which Let's not gloss
over that in a country that's dealingwith crazy patriarchal conservatism.

(30:33):
Earning her living by singing atweddings and baptisms, mb Bamako.
she said the producer Samsa hadalready invited me several times to
record an album, so evoking Missyand Tim right away, but I always
refused because I thought if itdidn't work out, I would feel ashamed.
But he kept coming after meand he even ended up offering
his own car to me as a gift.
And at that point I said to myself, umu,you're riding a Yamaha motorcycle now.

(30:57):
Look, a car is a much better option.
So I accepted the offer.
you'll gimme a car.
All right, I'll do what I do for a car.
That's tight.

Cliff (31:06):
could be a detail coming from a game of telephone maybe, but the way it's
phrased makes it sound like he offeredhis car, which makes it even better.
Please, please,

Kyle (31:18):
she did say for, in this interview, she did say his own

Cliff (31:21):
Yeah,

Kyle (31:23):
You know how much you gotta love an artist to be like, shirt off
my back, I'll give you my car note.
pink slip for your voice.

Cliff (31:33):
I mean that,

Kyle (31:34):
that's dope.

Cliff (31:36):
approaching literal shirt off your back in that country and in that context.
Yeah.

Kyle (31:42):
there's a lot, again, like it, it just begets more things to wanna learn.
I thought it was really interestingthat she went to Abba John to
record this record because,so she's, she was a city girl.
She grew up in Bamako in the, thesort of cosmopolitan capital of Mali.
but she's from the southwesternportion of Mali, or her family

(32:05):
is, her mom is from Wasu.
She's the youngest daughter ofa family belonging to was Ani.
She was raised by her mother Aate,who was also a renowned singer.
She knew very little about herfather because he left home to do
the polygamy thing and take a secondwife when she was two years old.

(32:26):
So her mother had become a traderto support her four children.
And Umu left school at an earlyage to sing at the streets.
Like, starting at five years old, shewas singing in the streets and doing
competitions and sang at Bamako'sbig stadium in front of 5,000 people
when she was a little, little kid.
Um, and that was like a definingexperience for her, but she was earning
money from doing this sort of entertainingbit and like before she was a teenager

(32:53):
at all, was providing for her family,her family with a single mother, which I
think speaks to the enormity of her talentand also of her spirit kind of defines.
The artists she became.
But the location of studio is interestingbecause Abidjan is where her dad ran

(33:13):
off to, to start the second family.
So we talk about, um, being punk as fuck.
I don't, you know, I'm impressing uponthe situation that those two things
are correlated, but part of me believeswith what I know about artists, that
is like, oh, I heard the guy that ranout on us is there, I'm gonna go there

(33:38):
and do a thing that, I don't knowwhether it's gonna shake the world up.
But it, it was so undeniable that it did.
so I'm myth making perhaps a littleon, um, MU's behalf, but she more
than made up for it by making herown myth real over years and years
of consistency of art and advocacy.
So.
I'm gonna put that in the cannon as well.

Cliff (34:00):
You know what I build on that because even if you are maybe
opportunistically projecting, whichI don't know that you are, but even
if so, the literal subject matterof horror music lets you know what
actually mattered to her in thosemoments and like, it's such a man.

(34:23):
for this human being Cliff who has alot of trouble with vocals and lyrics,
to have an album like this that's in alanguage that I don't understand and then
to go, huh, I wonder what this is about,and then find out what they're all about
was, oh, I mean, satisfactionto the hundredth percentile

(34:47):
for me all the way around.
This is how words inMusic ought to work to me.
but it's a little bit of a excitedintro to just like the two different
ways that I hope people can startto hear and understand this music.

(35:08):
And I want to kind of give a previewof one and then maybe we can go back
to the one we started with, those twothings being one, just the musicality
of a thing that you don't have a literalunderstanding of, because it's literally
in a language and from a place that youknow, most of us listening to this podcast
don't have a ton of familiarity with.
So there is a literal sense of foreignnessto it that allows you to embrace the

(35:32):
music in a really interesting way.
But I'd say let's put a pin in that.
There's still more to talk aboutthere, but like, put a pin in
that and hop over as well thoughto the literal side of things.
Okay.
The translation of this album titleis Women Like, you know, Kyle, you
were just mentioning the stories oflike being given a car in exchange for

(35:56):
making an album The subject matter ofsome of these songs, the things that
we can in fact get translations of, orthat we, can discern from interviews
with Umu or interviews with peopleabout her and her impact, all of that.
One thing that we know for absolutecertain is that these songs are at least

(36:16):
in part, about financial independencethrough finding a way to make enough
money to create enough independencefor yourself to see the oppression
of the systems that you're in.
Like.
This is what these songs are about.
Like they are pushing back on arange to marriage and polygamy.

(36:37):
They're pushing back on misogynisticplacements of genders and sex in society.
And those things are all100% true and accurate.
And still, everything we just saidabout joy and abstractness of the
instruments and songs and everything,all those things are still true and are

(37:00):
still all wrapped up in this one album.
That's it.
It like when we don't know abetter way of describing a thing
as punk, this is what we mean.
Like the two rails are aligned ofartistry and like intention and meeting.
Like this.
Music was designed to do a thingfrom day one and to a degree.

(37:22):
Not to a degree we can, weknow this from what she said.
The meaning and the purpose of themusic was always more important
than creating a self-sustaining,capitalistic esque mechanism out of it.
Those two things can be related toone another, but one is always more
important and is guiding the other one.
And like to see those things comehome to roost on a West African album

(37:46):
from 1990 it was just another momentof just like, no matter cliff, how
much you feel like you ever know aboutmusic, your humility is gonna come
back into play every time you let it.
'cause there's just infinity that youdon't see and realize about the people
who make the music you listen to.

Kyle (38:07):
Totally agree.
I wanna double down on two things.
First.
I think the confrontationalness of the subject matter works
in part because it starts withaffirmation, just like the cramps.
It starts with love and beauty.
This is what and who we are.
The album title says who this is for.

(38:27):
And that doesn't mean it's not foranyone else, but it's directed at women.
And she reiterated that ininterview after interview.
But the first two lines of the firsttrack, Jean smu, which translates to Let's
Talk, it says, friends, let's have a talk.
Sisters, don't dwell on sad thoughts.
So to my audience, let's dial inon a feeling together and lift

(38:50):
each other's vibrations rightbefore we get into all the other

Cliff (38:54):
I'm just laughing about the idea of a song these days,
starting out with friends.
Let's not kill ourselves.
There is much to live for.

Kyle (39:05):
I can totally see punk songs now though, being like,
stay alive despite the fuckers.
You know what I mean?

Cliff (39:11):
sorry to, sorry to interrupt.
With such lightheartedness, but like,it, every serious moment gives me a, a
lighthearted counterpoint in this andit's part of what's made it delightful.
I, will limit myself.

Kyle (39:23):
I really think the love and beauty and her sureness in it, standing with both
feet in the love and beauty of the way shetells these stories is what makes it work.
Like it stays not heavy handed becauseof the way that she's delivering it.
And it took me a while to click intothat as sort of some of what's happening.

(39:45):
the other thing I mentionedhow much fun it is to go learn.
I like, I feel like a kid in gradeschool, in history class, just like
there's so much world out there I haven'tseen yet, and people with fundamentally
different experiences than me.
I just get to keep learning about it,you know, like I have in Carta on my

(40:08):
1995 PC and I can click to all thesedifferent parts of the world and learn
things about the foods they eat andthe music they listen to and all that.
So just the straight history,geography, sociology, like
encyclopedia facts type thing.
This scratches the same itchfor me on a lot of levels.
So I love when she talks about culturalcontext because it's so important

(40:29):
for her to relay some of that.
The same way that Ravi would introduceRaagas to Western audiences and talk about
like, this is a raaga for the morning.
This is, you know, like recommendedif you like, type contextualizing.
Some people may find that pedanticand I, I totally get that.
Too much handholding for an unfamiliaraudience, but I really genuinely

(40:51):
appreciate it and I think if you take itin the spirit of childlike curiosity and
appreciation and a genuine bid to connect.
Somebody from a different place thanyou who's more similar than different.
it's just fun and it's joyful.
And I think remembering thatfeeling of pure curiosity, there's
such an abundance of that here.
So Banning ear interviewed her for a 2001issue of Miss Magazine, like Ms. Period.

(41:19):
and there's some great excerpts from that.
Banning asked her, you know, Molly hasan unusually strong tradition of women
singers and that really stands out to me.
Why do you think that is?
Umu said, in my opinion, it's'cause women have always been a very
powerful force in Molly in society.
But the tradition has never wanted themto speak in the men's milieu, never
wanted them to express their ideas.

(41:40):
I've preferred to sing becausethat's where I can get away with it.
Singing takes place at ceremonieswhen everyone is present.
Women, old people, and youth.
Everyone is there.
If there's something very importantto discuss, women are not invited.
They have no word.
But in ceremonies, we can sing.
That's the moment when women canrelease all they have inside.
If the woman had things to say about someimportant discussion, she was not called

(42:03):
to because she's a woman at the ceremony.
With everyone present, shecan sing and get it all out.
That's her chance.
Certainly in Wasu ithas happened like that.
it's a way to release her cares, herproblems, her ideas, even about society.
Everything she wants to say inher singing, she says all that.
So that's extremely subversive.
Like I have found an avenuewhere I can say things and speak

(42:25):
truth to power and it's goingto be frowned upon, but allowed.
like one of those interesting wrinkles.
About human nature of like peoplefinding ways for their power to fill
the container of together power,societal power, community power.

(42:46):
I just really like it speaks to thestrength of the human spirit and the
beauty of creativity as an avenue.
Like, well, I can't say it directly,but I can put it in a song.
and that's a really interestingway of going about it.
I, I also remember another interviewwhere she said, basically, like a lot of
African artists, you're expected to kindof walk it, like you talk it, you know,

(43:08):
your, your work has to have a message.
Um, what was it?
Fela said like, musicmust be for revolution.
It's maybe not quite that level ofblack and white, but the expectation is
that like, you're kind of a role model.
You, you need to teach people things.
They're there to learnfrom you as a teacher.
It's a. An artist, a singer, astoryteller, A grio is a position of

(43:33):
some import in a lot of these cultures.
So you can't like, You can't beKaty Perry in a world like this.

Cliff (43:42):
Certainly not.
I think your, your point's well madethough, too about the finding mechanisms
and levers of power, especially forpeople who are traditionally oppressed.
And then the idea of you sortof labeled it in a facetious
sense as like handholding.

(44:03):
But that actually helped me connect it tolike, I feel a lot of spiritual lineage
between this music and again, it doesn'tfeel like I'm doesn, it feels like I'm
saying an odd thing about time, but Ifeel a lot of both coltran in this music

(44:24):
specifically with, like I said, you, your.
We're labeling it as handholding toexplain the idea, but the concept of
book ending intense records with, um,an a literal introduction, something
that like draws you in slowly to notfreak you out too bad at the beginning.

(44:47):
And then by the end also, alice,especially out of the coal
trains, did this, uh, frequently.
But like you end on anuplifting note as well.
Like you sort of circle back around to themoment that hopefully you found yourself
at the beginning of the record, so thatyou could either continue for another
cycle or just sort of find yourselfagain in the future in that little

(45:10):
moment, uh, of being okay, here we go.
Now we're into it.
And once I'm in it, this is theonly thing I'm paying attention to.
And I think this music does a very goodjob of bringing that same concept forward
because you know, you, you mentionedthe slow rolled intro, but then, you
know, and Dia the last song is likehugely uplifting, positive way to end.

(45:36):
And then like we've said,like in the middle of that.
Sandwich is some real meaty stuffactually, uh, in the middle,
like topically heavy stuff,societally and culturally heavy.
And then like we're trying to point out,even though it has such a lighthearted.
Feeling to it.

(45:57):
Like the music itself has a complexitythat is dense in the middle that it
sort of winds itself into, especiallyat the beginning of the record.
And just to say one more thing on thatlittle thought that helped me think
through what I was hearing on thisrecord, another reason to me that it
feels like a spiritual descendant oflate sixties and early seventies, like

(46:20):
spiritually influenced jazz is becauseof the really weird stereo production
that's happening on this record too.
which again reminds me of like theseventies when like stereo pans and
like speaking of can you mentionedearlier, you know, they loved it.
We're just gonna shove the drums intothe far right hand corner of the room in

(46:42):
this very, very particular spatial place.
They don't do the same thing with the

Kyle (46:46):
And here I'm damo, right in the middle.
Sorry

Cliff (46:52):
exactly.
It freaks me out justlike that every time.
Yeah.
So it, like, it brings some ofthat forward, especially at the
very beginning of the record whereit's, it's building up pretty slow.
Um, slow and, and gives you maybean overly jovial feel at the
very beginning that ropes you in.

(47:13):
And then before you know it,you were, you were in the
middle of some important things.

Kyle (47:18):
I think we can put a finer point on that by, reading the
words of your favorite critic,who sounds the most like you?
That I think I've ever heard.
Uh,

Cliff (47:27):
It's time for a podcast.
Within a podcast.
What did Christ Gal say about this one?

Kyle (47:32):
that's right.
When I first heard Mus Lu, thedebut that made Umo Sangre a star
at 21, I was so drawn to the soundthat I pegged it for my own top 10
before I comprehended a single word.
Remember, this is the guy thathates most things that he hears.
I knew nothing of the singer'spolitics, her popular andia
was running through my head.

(47:53):
While I still thought the refrain wasa woman's name or a woman ish sounding
place in Andorra or Georgia, but inBabar, her language, it means, oh my love.
I certainly didn't know that sherepresented a different strand of Ian
Music from the dominant style JollyWasu named for the southern region from
which it comes has origins not in theancient Malian courts, but in hunting
parties and agricultural festivals.

(48:13):
It features a banjo like instrument that'ssupposedly Ritalin of Youthful Rebellion,
has a topical and personal focus and nomusical cast system, and is 90% female.
Jolly, though it includes more women thanyou might expect, an Islamic culture is
fundamentally conservative, performedby hereditary grios who literally
sang the praises of the powerful.
So there's that power bit again, he said,had I known all that, it might've informed

(48:37):
my interest, but I think what I lovedmost about the music so spare so strangely
circular, was that I didn't understand it.
I heard exquisitely sustained irresolutionas structural convention pluck strings
that back home may well signifyadolescent attitudes sounded rural to me.
Acid the childish timber of the chorus.
Vocal techniques that simplyreflect an Arabic influence

(48:59):
sounded like pure yearning.
What I thought I heard was music bearingand extraordinarily beautiful tradition
that had not been hybridized so much asunderlined or spelled in large print,
and I wasn't so far off the mark.
Once you find the translations,you realize that tradition
is basically Ari's subject.
Anad is about the tension betweennew and old concepts of love.

(49:20):
To your point about light withheavy in the middle, what gets lost
in translation though is the tone.
Even when the liner notes tell me inso many words that angara is being
ironic, I just hear compassion.

Cliff (49:32):
an unusually apt description of what I hope.
Many people are going to experience aftereven just seeing this podcast title from
this episode, go hit this record and thenhave that experience to that end maybe.
So then flipping back to the otherside of the brain momentarily, talking

(49:56):
through the like purely sort ofjoyful experience of the music itself
especially before or sort of independentfrom layering in the importance of
what's being discussed and what themeaning of a lot of that music is.
I think there are some cool momentsto point out for people to listen

(50:17):
in for and some interesting waysto listen to this music on purpose.
Cool tee out to myself.
Do you mind if I just go aheadand start mentioning a few of

Kyle (50:25):
I would love for you to go first.

Cliff (50:28):
hopefully I'll bring home a couple of examples I've pointed
out so far into specific moments.
so dire Nene, one of the tracks on here,there is, and I want you, if you are
someone who even has a passing sort ofreference to what a Led Zeppelin sounding
thing sounds like, just spin that, thattrack at about 10 seconds in there is,

(50:55):
I swear, a Jimmy Page guitar riff beingplayed on a very different instrument.
The Led Zeppelin moves that I love somuch are happening exactly right here.
There is a guitar riff that'sbeing played independent from
the rhythm being introducedthat will help make sense of it.
And so they start by playing this onekind of weird noodly sounding thing.

(51:20):
And then there's a base accompanimentagain, Jimmy Page, John Paul
Jones would do this a lot.
Jimmy Page would say like, playsomething that was a really
hard thing to track along to.
And then instead, again, instead of therhythm coming in to give you exactly the
beat, instead the bass comes in and doesthis little like, a goofy sounding sound.

(51:42):
Now that I'm gonna movebeside the guitar, don't.
Where am I gonna go?
Now, what, is this gonna be a coolsounding song, or is this gonna be one of
the ones that sound like out on the tiles?
Who knows?
Because like, I'm just gonna kindof go in this fun direction until
the rhythm drops in and then therhythm drops in and the base proceeds
to immediately do like a weird,almost like atonal verse type thing.

(52:08):
It, it moves on completely from theriff, doesn't extend it, doesn't
keep it going, but also doesn't playanything like simple or straightforward.
They move that along and thenabout a minute and 49 seconds into
that same track, they slam allthe way back into that rift that
they first played the first time.
After giving you a minute and a half'sworth of like instrumental context about

(52:33):
what any of that stuff means, and likeInfinitely rewarding, dorky shit on
this album, just like music nerd stuffhidden in a record that, the quote
from Christ Cow that you just mentionedabout like basically the tone almost
being imperceptible if you don't knowwhat you're listening for is like, that

(52:55):
is so much of what's happening here.
I would never have expected the levelof depth and interesting moments
that I get to experience listeningreally, really closely to what's
happening on a number of tracks here.
And that's just one examplethat I can bring you already.

Kyle (53:13):
Yeah, my less sophisticated analysis would be.
I'll say three things.
Clarity, charisma, and language clarity.
I, you and I have both already mentionedit's recorded and mixed pristinely.
so not only is the production veryclear, the playing is very clear.

(53:34):
You just talked about thedexterity, but like that is
remarkably consistent throughout.
It is sophisticated playing.
I know I've mentioned the Tom Waits quote,like a gentleman is someone who can play
the accordion but doesn't, there's areally tasteful level of playing like
Nashville session player type thing.
And I, think that's partly because,the bass player, Amadou bug window.

(53:59):
Was kind of an old head.
I don't know how old he was specificallywhen this was recorded, but he had been
a member of the prestigious national badaorchestra that was like a state sanctioned
traveling and recording orchestra to showoff and be the pride of Mulian culture.
and he played bass anddid the arrangements.

(54:21):
so there's, sophisticated playersoverseeing the proceedings or being
involved with the proceedings.
the second one, charisma, like I wastrying to compare it to, what is this,
like the other albums we've talkedabout in terms of level of attention
required or energy that it has in itor that it gives me or requires of me.

(54:42):
So it's like not incredibly percussive.
In a way like Shuga would be whereit's really loud and distorted and
in your face, but it is propulsive.
So it's also not like Jackieand Kane where it's like,
you know, it's like, it'smore mellow than that.

(55:03):
It's, it's also not too noisy, not tooambient, but it's also not too academic
or singer songwriter to, to English years.
So it draws in my reptilebrain just the right amount.
It keeps me there for long periods.
It like sits in a cut reallynicely and to the point you've
made a couple of different ways.
the changes are just subtleenough, but then they wind up

(55:25):
being just different enough thatthey sort of keep you in the cut.
The third thing with language, again,being a word nerd, like Babar is not
a language that I was familiar with.
I. it's a lingua franca.
It has 4.2 million native speakersand potentially double or even triple
that secondary or tertiary speakers.

(55:46):
It is part of a greater tongue ofrelated languages called manding spoken
across the countries in West Africa.
and then the writing of it is a mixof Latin characters in the African
Alphabet plus N'Ko, which is like,sort of like in apostrophe KO sort
of an Arabic esque writing style.

(56:08):
And it's even blendedin kind of a Creole way.
So just learning about thatis a whole nother rabbit hole.
And just thinking about the potentialthat that offers her to break through,
like it's extremely local, but themix of origins of a lot of this
language in speaking and writing.

(56:30):
Offers up a lot of possibility for itto be recognized, even on sub, sub,
some subconscious level, by other folks.
And one example that I wasn't aware of,having heard this language before that I
ran across in the research is from StevieWonder's Secret Life of Plants, which we
talked about on a fairly recent episode.
I don't remember which one.

(56:51):
he used Babar to link Seed andStar we'll say, And I don't
remember where I found this.
So all credit to thewriter who pointed it out.
So, secret Life of Plantscame out in October, 1979.
It's a pretty far out project inStevie's oeuvre, a pair of songs
focused on a complex central concept.
A seeds a star among the musicianson the track is called Kiss A yalo.

(57:14):
De is a Senegalese Cora playernamed, Lamine or Lemonade Conte.
The lyrics which translates to asea of star, a star a seed, are sung
in fantasized Babar con's Nativelanguage Wonder draws inspiration from
the doggone tribe of Ali, known fortheir astronomically based cosmology.
The film ties the Dogon Celestial insightsand beliefs to an esoteric experiment

(57:38):
run by a scientist who hoped to provethat mustard seeds might share observable
communication with a distant star.
So that's like the type of shitthat, Two white boys who love sleep,
dope smoker might've been into, ifthat's your particular flavor of
bong water, that's a whole rabbithole for you to explore as well.
There's a, there's a cosmic poetry tothe language that, that allows for a

(58:01):
lot of that sort of metaphorical room.

Cliff (58:04):
we like sun raw enough to know that we would like this too.

Kyle (58:07):
Yeah.
Yes, yes, man.
The orchestra, somebody needs to be payingme for big year's mentions at this point,
but the orchestra at the Tennessee Theaterwas so, I guess pun fully intended out
of this world, just fully blew my mind.

Cliff (58:26):
I'm laughing because of the number of, sort of esoteric threads that we
have going throughout different episodes.
and sun raw in our relationship toall of that stuff is one of them.
But also now, uh, we've got the SecretLife of Plants, which we've managed to
mention through its, you know, legitimateconnection to what we're talking about.

(58:48):
But we also recently got to mentionPlantasia it had a, like a thread
of connection to something else.
So play the TuneDig ARG of plant-basedalbums that we have, I guess, started
ever since a dope smoker began,

Kyle (59:05):
The TIG cosmic cannon,
that should be a thing.
We should give that away.
We should assemble those records andgive them away on vinyl in the spirit
of how this podcast got started.

Cliff (59:18):
Being weird the right way.
Kit from Tune Dig.

Kyle (59:22):
Will, will barter plants for a sweepstake entry.
What context did you listen to this in?
Because this is a really interesting one.
That is again, the, the foreignnessof it is like, how do you
naturalize it to your own listening?
I'm very curious.

(59:43):
I know you said you listened to itwith a bunch of different speakers
and headphones and stuff, but likewhat, what felt right where to click?

Cliff (59:49):
not that there would be anything wrong with this, but not a, uh, 90
degree summer windows down cranked allthe way from your car stereo type record
the same way that many others are.
Although I, I guess they could work

Kyle (01:00:04):
can I say that that is actually what, that's what worked for me.

Cliff (01:00:08):
Hell yeah.

Kyle (01:00:10):
In my 1998 pickup truck, I burned a CD of it.
Uh, and by the way, I, I foundit on cassette and have ordered
it, so I'm very excited about

Cliff (01:00:22):
Hell yeah.

Kyle (01:00:23):
but it was like, well, the only way to contextualize it in my life is
to go about my life listening to it.
You know, it felt too NPR listener tolike, sit in a room and be like, now I'm
going to enjoy the sounds of Umu sga.
You know, it felt like being atthe Rialto and somebody telling
me that I needed to be into it.

(01:00:44):
So I just got in the truck and put thatshit on, and it helped bridge reptile
brain connections for me, like we'retalking about Brooks and Dunn next month.
There were a lot of points where I wasdriving down back roads and it felt
like listening to a country album tome, like really, really good pickers.
So really, probably more like abluegrass or something like that.
But I. The storytelling and justthe consistency of the playing

(01:01:09):
in a style felt like a countryrecord to me, and I loved it.
But you didn't do that.
You did the opposite.
So tell me

Cliff (01:01:15):
Man.
I love that.
That makes me so happy.
Yeah.
No, I didn't do it that way.
That's awesome.
I, um, I mostly identified inexactly the way that you made
fun of the NPR self important.
I am going to sit here and listen toumo now, and I found myself doing that

Kyle (01:01:33):
Were you wearing a tote bag the whole time

Cliff (01:01:36):
of course.

Kyle (01:01:37):
your listener drive tote bag,

Cliff (01:01:38):
Yes, it's made from recycled towed bags.
Yes,

Kyle (01:01:43):
of all hemp and it's got a bunch of weed in it.

Cliff (01:01:47):
I would never waste it that way.
this became so imminentlylistenable to me in a way that
three Raagas started to be for me.
But that one, and what Ravi is doingin general, and hon honestly, like,
maybe this is like a weird, a culturalprojection or whatever, but like I

(01:02:07):
could listen to and can listen toRavi Shankar and related music pretty
easily in almost every situation.
'cause it doesn't distract my brain,uh, the way that a lot of like lyrics or
really hooky songs do that I'm used to.
but this one, like we've talked aboutfor so many reasons, feels less.
Serious isn't the right word.

(01:02:29):
And, and heavy isn't the right wordeither, but I'm still gonna kind of use
them because like for, for me personallyas a person who loves, you know, music
like Converge, like I love a serioussong, A good serious bop can get Cliff.
I get real into that, but it also will,

Kyle (01:02:48):
music, that's a task.
It requires computing power.

Cliff (01:02:52):
But it engage, it engages me.
Like I 100% believe and maybe I'll dothis one day, like you could figure out
what sort of music I was listening tobased on my heart rate changes alone.
and so I have to be kind of carefulabout what I listen to, even if
it clicks into place really well.
Because if it starts to feeltoo serious, I will get too like

(01:03:15):
emotional and it becomes like.
A whole thing that I'm doing overhere, and I'm no longer doing
whatever it was I was doing when Iwas trying to listen to this music.
For whatever reason, this one justlike sits right in the cut for me.
it is, a fantastic active listening.
I'm not doing anything or I'mnot doing much of anything

(01:03:36):
other than listening to this.
So I would extend that to say even ifyou're not sitting in fucking lotus
position or whatever, this is a very good,your stupid mental health walk album, like
this one, a hundred percent as loud as youcan possibly, and reasonably listen to it.
I think it's awesometo kinda lock in there.

(01:03:59):
so I, I sort of had those experiences alot, but then also it just became a really
easy one to, I don't do a lot of fullalbum repeats, but the last one I remember
starting to do that with, was AliceColtrane, uh, and Journey in sat nda.
Oh, I still can't say that offthe cuff, uh, like we did with

(01:04:21):
all the practice in that episode.

Kyle (01:04:24):
Nda.

Cliff (01:04:24):
you.
Nda.
Um,
yeah, so it sort of surprised mein that way and clicked in there.
I think part of the reason as wellmusically, that it's interesting.
I really need better, probablylanguage to describe the sort of Led
Zeppelin, threeness of the whole thing.
But like that is so muchof what it felt like to me.

(01:04:46):
And that record was a very, it isjust like a very specific one, like
Led Zeppelin's just very centralto me and how I think about music.
But that one, that record intheir canon is itself one of the
more lighthearted, maybe the mostlighthearted record that they did.
And it has this sort ofoutside feeling to it.

(01:05:08):
Like literally, like I'm outside at afarm, I'm outside walking, it's got this.
Uh, space and vibe to it.
Um, that's sort of fundamentally differentfrom a lot of the other records they did.
And this one clicks in the same way to mein the sense that I can listen passively
or go directly in and check into what I'mlistening to, pull something interesting

(01:05:30):
back out of it, note it, and then kindof go back and let it recede again.
And to me, anytime music matches upwith the format of meditation, of like,
I can notice a thing and I can chooseto bring that to my attention, or I can
choose to let that go, knowing that ifI ever want to come back to it, I can.

(01:05:51):
And I believe that it's there.
anytime I start toexperience that in music.
Like that album or that artistenters a spreadsheet column that very
few other works of art do for me.
And so, you know, not trying to overlyserious my answer to your question
here, but it was like finding the exactright wavelength for it to sit into,

(01:06:15):
clicked it pretty permanently into place.

Kyle (01:06:17):
I love that.
Two things that you said that I reallyloved are, you know, contrasting this
with what we talked about with Erika Badu.
I, like, I love what you saidabout music makes me too emotional.
Like it raises me too, too highan altitude, too high frequency.
And I was like, well, doesn't that doit with me too, or like with everybody?

(01:06:38):
But it was like, no, I am, I run tooemotionally hot all the time anyway.
And music is, is the Adderallthat brings me back down to level.
So I love that this is a record where wekind of meet in the middle, and that's
what you mean by the meditation thing.
But like with er Badu, it was like nomatter what, it's going to raise your
vibration was the term that we kept using.
Like This brings you down yourflight simulator, mental health

(01:07:01):
wise to the, to the right level.
I also think that outsidepoint is a really good one.
You don't have to be outside toappreciate it, but like it's summer
and where we both are, it's startingto get beautiful, if not hot.
You live in a place that is all aboutoutside, not to infer a correlation
where a correlation's not there, butI think it's pretty fair to do here.

(01:07:23):
knowing the roots of this traditionalform of music that she is honoring
and trying to bring into the present.
specifically, there was this one thingI read that I loved, uh, WASU music,
drawing its roots from the vocal andinstrumental traditions of the Don.
So societies in southern Mali, the Don,so being the hunters, these hunters

(01:07:47):
were highly respected figures, notjust for providing food, but also as
healers, philosophers, and musicians.
So again, like almost a, a class, away of regarding an esteem, their music
is considered one of Molly's oldestforms, which would make it quite an old
form globally of musical transmission.
believed to possess magical powerto charm wild animals and protect

(01:08:11):
villagers, just like, okay.
They believed there was magic in the musicthat they were making for themselves,
not necessarily for anyone else.
So that comes through the most clearly,when you're among the elements that they
were connecting to and observing on.
So, love the idea thatthis is an outside record.

(01:08:34):
I was thinking about how, you know,I so often am barefoot and have been
barefoot for so much of my life.
I love driving my truck barefoot.
and so I was like, I spent an unusualamount of time barefoot listening to
this record, whereas with some othersI'd be like in shoes in the office,

(01:08:54):
sneaking it in, in the context of my life.
But I was, to use the, the sortof Buckley episode mantra, I was
touching grass a lot, quite literally.
And it works on that level.
So, you know, not to be likethe African record is one you
should listen to in nature.
That's not what we're saying at all.
Like is it's connected to theenergy of the origins of this

(01:09:18):
particular type of music from huntersand it works really damn well.
outside in the sunshine.
You're just better po like when you'regetting sun on your face, you're
just better positioned, like yourchakras are more open or whatever.
So it's good.
you're silly little mental health walk

Cliff (01:09:39):
You know,

Kyle (01:09:39):
capitalism.

Cliff (01:09:41):
what you just said with a, with a little bit of a twinkle in
your eye about us, us not making a,a very stupid correlation, uh, about
African music, feeling more outside it.
That though does give us, I thinkanother good talking point for
everyone as a way of engaging withthis record really specifically.

(01:10:04):
And even in a more sort of intellectualway, I think this, I. The v, I mean
the very first notes of the very firsttrack should do a pretty good job of
reminding you that whatever you thinkof as Appalachian music, for example,
the story that you have as a placeholderin your brain about where all that came

(01:10:27):
from and why it sounds the way it does.
It's probably wrong.
'cause all of a sudden in that firsttrack, not only can you hear instruments
and specifically like moves, like theways that the instruments and the rhythm
will move together, you are drawing outAppalachian music, bluegrass country,

(01:10:48):
um, at the same moment that you'rehopefully already starting to hear.
Oh, well that stuff I heardfrom like the Ravi episode.
Oh, there's a lot of Indian music here.
yeah, dude, it's not just a funnyor weird saying of like, Africa is
sort of like the central point ofeverything that we've come to love and

(01:11:11):
appreciate about music and culture.
Like this is another one of those timeswhere it's like, if you're going to engage
with history in any meaningful way, thisalbum will stand right in front of you
and go see This comes from a time and aplace that you would've never expected.
not only is it from, like, to me thatis what adds so much sensation to the

(01:11:35):
sensation of like, how is this from 1990,very specifically like that out of time
and out of Placeness I think remindedme yet again, like I know the whole.
the whole conceit of our podcast, right,is like finding ways to continually be put
back in your place by music in a way thatmakes you enjoy it and appreciate it, and

(01:11:59):
then go back and do that exercise again.
But like even expecting that everysingle album we listen to this
one like sat me down in a chairin a classroom and said like.
Even you with all of your weird obsessionabout music history, don't know enough
because this caught you off guard.

(01:12:19):
And like, it's a really good momentto go back and really, once again,
even if it's just kind of going downthe rabbit hole one time to learn a
few things, just learning about whatare the literal instruments being
used here, how are they being played?
Who is playing them?
How were they recorded?
Is a, prism backwards and forwardsinto music history and everything

(01:12:43):
that's otherwise called world music.
it's hard to think of a better,literal introductory, piece of music
to that sort of an idea than thisone provides right off the bat.

Kyle (01:12:55):
I think, you know, getting to the what to focus on or isolate exercise
if, if the other prisms of like standoutmoments don't work, just the voice, just
the production, maybe none of that's it.
The exercise of instrument geeking.
Also works really, really well.

(01:13:17):
you can watch Bela Fleck's documentary,throw Down Your Heart, which is him
trying to trace the origins of thebanjo, the instrument that he's made
his living on that he loves, andeventually getting back to the ngoni.
specifically the Kamali Anni here.
there's also the percussion instrument.
Uh, the nan a scraper.

(01:13:39):
There's bongos on this record.
There's violin.
So when you come in on track one pan inthe right channel, you have the anni.
And it does sound like banjo

Cliff (01:13:52):
Yep.
Or do bro.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:13:54):
Dobro, it's less metallic though.
It's more, it's more pldrummy or nyy almost.
and then you get the violin and its,I mean, it sounds like Appalachian.
Porch music.
but it, while it shares similaritieswith, you know, passing down oral
tradition and connecting community andthat sort of stuff, there's like more

(01:14:17):
of an esteem to the way that they do it.
I guess because it connects ruraland, and urban in the way that they've
designed and delivered it a bit.
So I wouldn't think of it as folkmusic or try to other it, 'cause
it's like backwards and rural.
there's a deliberate choice made inthe instruments that they selected

(01:14:38):
and the way that it's performedand the way that it's captured.

Cliff (01:14:42):
So instrument chasing is one really good active listening
technique on this one for sure.
Um, and I'll just mention as a freebie,'cause I've already said enough about it.
Um, if you want to go fulldork, just chase the bass.
One time through.
He is, he is, he's doing some seriouslyfun stuff including all the way on on Dia,

(01:15:05):
the, that very last song, which definitelyget all the way there so that you can
get the earworm that everyone else inMolly got when a quarter of a million of
these Cass were making their way around.
And this was the biggest song.
but even the baseline in that song is likea little John Paul Jones e seventies, kind
of folky poppy type of walking bass thing.

(01:15:29):
Like every moment that you sort ofinvest in hearing a little bit of what's
happening there, uh, is heavily rewarded.
So, so chase the bass instrument divelearning about what you're listening
to, even just like literally Googlinglike, what am I hearing on this song?
Will render some prettyinteresting results.
What are some other.
Ways to engage with this record.

Kyle (01:15:51):
I mean, you say Chase the bass, I say Chase the ngoni.
Like I, I might have a soft spot forit because when I was working at the
Rialto in college, I got to see andinteract with Basa ate Amal and sort
of blues artists and his group in Goniba. so I just find that instrument.
Really interesting on its face 'causeit's so close and yet so far away.

(01:16:14):
And I learned again becauseUmu was such a great ambassador
for the music that she makes.
she talked about how in the pastyoung people are kale we're not
allowed to dance to this instrument.
It was like a provocativeElvis moment thing.
She said in the fifties or sixties,they created a similar instrument, which

(01:16:34):
they played differently so they coulddance to funk, jazz, rock, everything.
And it was a huge scandal, especiallybecause they spent their nights dancing.
They couldn't get up in themorning to work in the fields.
Young people fought with the elders untilthey were finally allowed to play it.
Uh, like, y'all aren't ready for this,but your kids will love it, you know?
And today the Kamala Anni, the youngpeople's harp is played everywhere

(01:16:57):
in Mali and all over the world.
Maba do.
City Bay fabricates them in the USnow and has a lot of students and when
Americans play the GNI correctly, itsounds like the way it's played in WashU.
So like, I just love the idea that this isa rock and roll record and I, for so many
listens did not make a cramps connection.

(01:17:18):
But there's so much that's similarabout honoring the music that
really activated them, but makingit their own and doing it in a way
that like nobody else could imitate.
And while the cramps were subversivein a really counter-cultural way, like
they, they wanted to freak people out anddrew a line over their popularity, even

(01:17:42):
though they aspired to be the most famousband in the world, like they mentioned.
A bit of a differentpoise in the delivery.
Allowed Umo saying to do pretty muchthe exact same thing as the cramps
to do a subversive thing in an artfulway, but also most of all honor
who she is and where she came from.
and like quite literallymake her mama proud.

(01:18:04):
And so I think like thechoice of the young people's
harp on this is a great one.
you know, it was also reallyinteresting to me that at that
time, like we've mentioned how 8990, it sounded really outta time.
I think listening for what's notthere in the historical context

(01:18:25):
is also really interesting.
And specifically, I mean, there's notdrum machines and shit like that that
one reviewer referred to as tacky,like that sort of thing was being.
Forced on artists all over the continent.
And they were asked to do some ofthat sort of stuff and she said,
no, we're gonna keep it traditional.
So the thought of being 20 or 21playing it the way the ancestors did

(01:18:51):
and sort of moving in reverse in herevolution, getting more experimental
and current as she got older nowshe's like, she's got a whole remix
album of one of her later albums.
And it, it's like Fract liesand it gets into dub and stuff.
So know it's weird to say listenfor what's not there, but it also
helps me appreciate the record more.

(01:19:13):
it's not really experimental necessarily.
It doesn't have a bunchof of the time bullshit.
Jamaica's another culture wherethat's really interesting.
This would've been around the same timewhere there was a lot of like computer
programming going into the beat makingand that that specific subset of reggae

(01:19:35):
and dancehall music was really interestingto me because it was so influential
to Brad Noel and Sublime and like I'mshowing my white bro-ness on that.
But it was an inroad back to thatworld and, and Bradley really loved
all that stuff and was paying homageto it and reinterpreting it constantly.
And there's a lot ofthat in Grace Jones too.
Like that record has a reallyclassic sound, but it also sounds

(01:19:56):
a lot more of the time it was made.
So thinking about how it isn't allthe things of that moment is really,
really profound to me and deepensmy enjoyment of it, that it doesn't.
Sound like the time it was made,but it also doesn't sound like
it's trying to be an artifact ofanother time by doing neither.

(01:20:17):
It does its own third thing, andthat makes it sound timeless.

Cliff (01:20:21):
Yep.
The absence of weird reverb anddrum machines makes it feel like
it could not have possibly existedat that particular moment in time.

Kyle (01:20:32):
And by the way, that's not,
it's not the Johnny Cash.
Like we'd play faster if wecould think it's the inverse.
She has always been extremelydiverse in her music taste.
she talked about how her motherraised her in a household full of
music like Cumba City Bay was like.
One of her idols and thensomebody else on the calendar.

(01:20:53):
Miriam Maba, who just passedaway not terribly long ago,
was sort of her role model.
So she had African artists that she wasreally into, but she loved Bob Marley
and she loved Michael Jackson and saidthat she like went into a period of
intense mourning when Bob Marley died.
So it could have been any of those things.

(01:21:15):
So again, it was a very deliberate choiceto not do one thing or the other that
existed in the musical context she wasin, but also to not be an African artist
Cribbing, Western popular forms either.
She said it was the rhythm above allbefore we understood what the songs meant.
So she had an astute way of pullinga. The sort of DNA elements to, you

(01:21:39):
know, follow the base to your pointI think a lot of the rhythm stuff not
only comes from the ancestral forms shewas honoring, but Bob Marley as well.

Cliff (01:21:50):
So maybe that gives us an ex an interesting, uh, speaking
of, uh, we talked about sort ofbook ending albums and handholding.
We naturally do some handholding atthe beginning of our episodes 'cause
we want you to listen to whatever.
Crazy ass thing we've picked this month,uh, and we think it'll be worthwhile.

(01:22:12):
So we have a little bit of that.
but I think another good bookend that welike to do and is really helpful here is
like, alright, hopefully you engage withthe exercise in some form or another.
Uh, and this opens you up in acool new way you didn't expect.
Where could you possibly begin to go next?
And so we can make a fun segue becausewe're probably not gonna say to the

(01:22:35):
points you just made, um, go listen toBob Marley to better deeply understand,
uh, music culture and history.
Uh, although there's plenty of realnon facetious things to say about Bob
Marley there, like, there are somereally interesting directions I think
to go from here based on sort of whatyou identify with or what interests you.

(01:22:56):
So I wanted to spend a littlebit of time here because.
Well, for several reasons, but, butone of them is this touches on the
types of genres of music that youcan, invite people into unexpectedly.
And what made me think of this wasspecifically Tinariwen is a band who

(01:23:21):
actually has some roots in Molly, uh,but is effectively doing a thing that
at once feels very odd and very normal,You're sort of not familiar with whatever
Tenara wind is doing and the whole likedesert rock thing that they're going for.
that's sort of the feeling you end upsettling into is like, this is unique

(01:23:43):
and not like anything I've heard, butit's not antagonistically experimental.
Um, which Kyle, you, you sort of mentioneda second ago, like, you know, a lot of
what we hear from Umu here, like it'snot, confrontational maybe in the way
that can was or something like that.
It's not abstract and experimental for thepoint of being abstract and experimental.

(01:24:06):
It's something that just maybedoesn't click directly into the
cultural frameworks you walk up with.
So to narrow in and I'm always terrifiedto say this out loud, but, um, do Motar
and other bands like that or just like,no, actually there's this weird little
escape hatch in the vat of weird bands.

(01:24:28):
And if you go to that little point, youcan sort of sneak people in who otherwise
wouldn't be interested in weird music.
And so I just kind of wanted tostart out like with that being one
of the ways to engage with this, liketake advantage of the moments when.
An artist or an album comesout of like total left field

(01:24:48):
for you, generally speaking.
But it's one where if you just put iton for other people, they don't tune
out or like they don't do the samething you might do if you turned on.
Speaking of sga, that will makesome people vomit immediately.
Right?
Like you, that's a whole other deal.
This one is like, people may not haveheard it before, but you're not gonna have

(01:25:10):
anybody go this I don't like this or Ihate it, or I don't, I don't like the way
it sounds or it makes me uncomfortable.
Like that lightheartedness that we'vetried to describe so much is a really
cool little red carpet that you can rollout for the more squareish people in
your life to make them a little cooler.

Kyle (01:25:31):
All of the artists that you just mentioned would work well at a party and
also wouldn't come across like, you'rea try hard, like, look at this cool
international thing that I found justlike, oh, this is, this is just good.
Like, I think a lot of shazaming happenswhen you put on any of those artists.
I would say similarly, anothereasy place to reach is Krung bin,

(01:25:54):
even though it's really more.
Tie and some Middle Eastern, but it's,I've heard people call it passport
rock 'cause it transports you toa lot of different places there.
So, like krung bin's a really easyone that I don't think anybody
needs a reason to be into right now.
But honing back in a little morespecifically on North Africa,

(01:26:15):
there's two interesting threads,I think with North Africa.
There's, there's like piers or antecedentsfrom other countries in North Africa.
specifically I would say Ethiopiais just like a personal favorite.
So you can dive into like the Ethiopiasseries of compilations, but the two
artists that I really love from thatcountry are Hailu Mergia, who again,

(01:26:39):
really distinctive instrumentalists,and who you can still see, uh, live,
you know, maybe for a little bit longer.
Actually, I would say three.
So I'll, I'll come backto a Ghanaian person next.
The second would be Mulatu at Stak.
who has a song slash is aplayer of the style Tezeta.

(01:27:04):
and then, you know, with Ghana,which is starting to get down more
into Fela Nigeria territory there'sGhanaian High Life, which is like a,
a specific style, that has some of thebest elements of this grio culture and
Jamaican and, toasting, uh, dance halltype culture, like that sort of thing.

(01:27:28):
and a cat that I just got to see nottoo long ago, Ebo Taylor is, uh, one of
the great artists that has sort of beenexported to the world from that scene.
but I'd also be remiss because I was like,okay, where does this lead to from here?
And I think there's Western and modernAfrican stuff that sort of tickles

(01:27:52):
the same place in my brain for this.
So modern African music isreally popular globally now,
which is very cool and exciting.
So some of the artists that I reallylove, one of whom we saw at One
Music Fest, or at least April andI did as Tims TEMS, amazing singer.

(01:28:15):
There's also Wizkid and BurnaBoy and other folks like that.
So I would think about how, in many ways,like the sister Rosetta tht, but more
famous and Umo sga, like made all of thisother stuff from the continent possible.
But then thinking about Western,other artists that like, do some of

(01:28:36):
the same stuff for me, it's like Ikept thinking about Nina Simone and
just the bravery of both of them.
And I think they'd like rolltheir eyes at some white boy
being like, wow, they're so brave.
but just the truth to power and thelike, I wouldn't do it any other
way, but this, Nina and maybe a bitBillie Holiday, but I just like the

(01:28:58):
power of the voice and the presence ofboth of them remind me of each other.
I think when I'm thinking about theinstruments and bringing the instruments
in the 21st century, I don't, I can'tthink of a better ambassador for that.
Hardly in the world than RhiannonGiddens, everything she's doing
around connecting instruments totheir roots and making that a way.

(01:29:21):
To help people love the instrumentsmore than they thought possible.
and then just thinking about likeinnovators, disruptor type people, like
you gotta give it up for Rosetta Art.
There's something very rock androll about Umu that connects
to the Rosetta Art lover in me.
But then, trying to thinkabout the last one, I swear.
some parallel, you know, we talkedabout the Selena analogy earlier of

(01:29:45):
just the hugeness in doing somethinginteresting and important with it.
It's interesting that Beyonce hassampled oo for the song Mood Forever.
That was on the Lion King soundtrack,I think, but is also on Black is King.
It's like, you know, her mostpro-black project to date and.
It's a whole other episode.

(01:30:06):
I think that we definitely shouldn'trecord two white guys talking about
critiquing pro blackness in the frameworkof extractive capitalism and whatever.
And like, I have my uneasinesswith some of the ways that
she and Jay-Z present that.
And that's like, that's a barconversation that I would love to
have with anyone and be told that myfeelings are wrong about it or whatever.

(01:30:27):
But she does uplift andempower a lot of people.
And the imagery, it's easy to see.
Like you'd have to be an assholeto watch one of her videos and not
be like, I get why it's importantfor these images to exist.
And I'm glad that sheputs them in the world.
Somebody has to do this andI'm glad she's doing it.
She does it in a, beautiful highart way that connects with millions

(01:30:51):
and millions and millions of people.
and so I love thatthere's a direct lineage.
Between them.
I think it was Di Robbie Nene wasthe song that was sampled on there.
it's a good one.
And I think that's the only song we'vebeen on such a samples kick lately.
I think that's the only song that'sbeen like notably sampled from

(01:31:14):
this record, which is interesting.

Cliff (01:31:16):
That is interesting.
Sorry.
In the middle of recording this podcast,I started thinking about why that is.
I'll have to do that on my own time.
Yeah, I think, um, man,all of that makes sense.
And I I understand your, I. Trepidationaround trying to describe music as
bravery, when neither of us willever even have the opportunity to

(01:31:40):
encounter the level of bravery thatsome of the artists you're talking
about have needed to experience.
So I acknowledge that and agree with it.
At the same time, the like, I, I dowanna reinforce it in the sense that like
the artists throughout time in historywho have been able to do the equivalent
of looking directly in the camera andsaying the thing, doing the sort of.

(01:32:04):
I guess one cultural equivalent wouldbe like Sinead O'Connor ripping up
the picture directly in front of thecamera and being like, there is no
confusion about what this is now about.
I am talking to you about the thing.
There are no more veils.
there are no layers.
I'm not abstracting right?
Like the lyrics of this album will sayto you, reject prearranged marriage.

(01:32:29):
it's saying it to you directly.
and like we don't have a better maybeway of describing that than like artistic
bravery of even being able to shed thelayer of artistry that you often have to
wrap yourself in to get yourself into aplace where you can make a point or make
a statement Similarly to people like I.

(01:32:52):
Nina, Simone, and Billie Holidayand the people you've mentioned,
like this is another one of thosemoments where, no, you're just
in the presence of someone great.
this is just an artist who isbetter than we are and will
ever be as individual people.
They did, and are doing somethingfundamentally deeper and different

(01:33:13):
than we have done, at leastin terms of our own culture.
Like, you know, maybe we can talk aboutthe small things that we do in our
own life and how, everyone's minutiainfinitely equal and all of that.
Yes, those things are true, but likein these moments you're actually
listening to a person who, who like.
Looked directly at the things thatthey wanted to change in their culture

(01:33:35):
and said, actually, I found a backdoor and now I'm here and now you
can't really do anything about this.
'cause I found a way to get hereand this is what it's about.
And everyone is listeningto the music that I made.
Like everyone has this cassette,they're all singing the things
that I said that we needed to sayand sing and talk about together.
And that's like just a deeplyimportant thing that we get the

(01:33:59):
privilege of looking upon as if we'rejust walking through a museum and
we get to see these moments from adistance and try to appreciate them.
Like all that's wrapped upin this 30 minutes of, again,
ostensibly jubilant music.
And that's pretty wild.

Kyle (01:34:14):
I find that so reassuring too in this political moment when, you know,
thinking about newer pop star or twoof our time sort of being wrung out
for being like, I'm not gonna commenton every political thing or whatever.
I think Umu is proof that you canwrap a whole life around, you know,
not what is necessarily politics inthe policy sense, but just saying,

(01:34:38):
I care about this and I'm going tocontinue to crusade for it consistently
and beautifully for my whole life.
And like she really is about it.
Uh, I think we would be remiss if wedidn't mention like she's a Goodwill
ambassador for the UN's food andagricultural organization, has been
for quite some time of getting peoplefed on the continent and beyond.
She's a commander of theNational Order of Mali.

(01:35:01):
She's a valier of culture in France.
She has three businesses in Mali, which Ithink is interesting, you know, using the
system that you're in to your advantage.
she has a, a cars business,a range of SUVs called Ong,
which is like such a trip.
She has a hotel that primarilyemploys and develops women as

(01:35:22):
leaders and has, a rice brand.
She has her own agricultural company,that grows in fields that she owns.
and again, employees, people helpsget women out of dangerous situations
and like quite literally puts hermoney where her mouth is getting them.
Empowered and on their wayto live the lives that, she's

(01:35:42):
talked about in her music.
And once again, punk as fuck.
I would love to see more people take moredirect action like that with the resources
and the influence that they have versuslike, here's my tax evasion scheme,
donate GoFundMe thing, or here's my IgEposting about guys, we should all really
care about the riots happening in la.

(01:36:03):
Like, no, they're, she's beenputting her body and her money on
the line consistently for 40 years.
and as a result, as a listener, I'mthat much more drawn to the joy and
the jubilance that she brings toher love of her home and her people.
and it all brings me back to like, okay,well I could do a little more of that.
I could be better at that in my owninfant isal ways, but also just remaining

(01:36:26):
open to the world in this closed offglobal moment, you know, opening yourself
to the world one thing at a time.
Like the world's big, but Bamako,Mali is small relative to it.
And studying one person from that placewho loves it enough to want to spend
her whole life telling you about it.
Literally starting a music festivalto try to get people to come from
all over the world to appreciateher culture in the musical forms.

(01:36:49):
you can do that.
I think we're trying todo that with this podcast.
And you can also help one personalong, like, give them this cassette
literally, or figuratively speaking andlet it, let get into their bloodstream.
I think sort of the last thought for meis, that it comes back to music for her.
I think comparing her to the Coltranes,or invoking the Coltranes, is really good.

(01:37:13):
It's just they're pure musicin the way that they live.
Their whole life is a creative act like itcreates, it generates energy in the world.
she has said a thing that is theultimate reminder of this podcast,
and I, I hope, is the refrain thatyou take away thinking about her life
and all the things that she's done.
She said, without music, I'm nothingand nothing can take it from me.