Baaba Maal is on a roll. After some 30 years making music around the world, the Senegalese star is winning wider acclaim. He is in the spotlight for his recent work with British band Mumford & Sons, and amid predictions that African music is once again the next big thing, he is playing larger shows.At the recent 65,000-capacity Barclaycard presents British Summer Time festival, he played his own set and returned later to join the headline act, the Mumfords. In between, he retreated to his shady dressing room with a bottle of water and a sofa full of towels to cool down and chat about the changing music scene.Back in the 1980s, African music looked like it would make it into western charts. Paul Simon helped awareness with the African-tinged album “Graceland.” Stars were varied as South African jazz man Hugh Masekela and Thomas Mapfumo — “the lion of Zimbabwe” — spread the word. They were followed by Senegal’s Youssou N’dour, and, of course, Maal himself. While the 1980s breakthrough of African music proved less momentous than predicted, it has kept coming back, thanks to Mali’s Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré and his family, plus the blind couple Amadou & Mariam, to name just two acts. Now that it's back on the agenda, has its time really come?Maal is convinced. “Yes. I think that people knew since the 1980s that African music was coming along. But it is now different. We have the right approach, connections, and a lot of collaborations. I notice it in the Africa Express project. [This includes stars such as Damon Albarn of Blur and Brian Eno working to help Mali.] This is a moment where people will say, ‘oh wow, this is interesting.’ Now also young musicians can achieve so much more on the Internet, and this makes it easier for African music. I think things are moving to a new level.”Maal is delighted with his collaboration with the Mumfords, which came about through the connection of one mutual friend, producer Johan Hugo from London-Malawi group The Very Best. They started to work on ideas and the Mumfords were fascinated by Maal’s Blues Du Fleuve (Blues of the River) Festival in Senegal.Maal recalled: “When the Mumfords got the chance to tour in South Africa, they invited me to guest. We said, ‘while we are there, why don’t we camp in the Johannesburg studio for two days and just put down some ideas?’ It just came about like that. We didn’t expect to have songs. We just wanted to have some ideas to work on for the next four months, six months, 10 months, whatever. But the excitement was there when we started playing with the [Cape Town band] Beatenberg and The Very Best. It was just like a big family, which made it easier to do as much as possible.”The Mumfords recently moved from folk towards rock on last year’s album “Wilder Mind.” This time, on the resulting 20-minute EP called “Johannesburg,” the banjos are back — just not being used in the English folk tradition.So were the Mumfords very open to ideas? “Definitely,” Maal said with enthusiasm. “I really like that from them. They’re not shy to play from the heart.”The star, now 62, sings mainly in Pulaar, knowing that in many countries listeners will not understand and can just appreciate the sound of his voice used as an instrument. “It used to be a problem because people wanted to know what I was saying,” he says. “With African music, there is often a sociological background – the history of hope, the struggle of people and democracy. But now I think it is really nice, for example with this Mumford collaboration, it makes it easier. We worked out the chords on the keyboards and then I started to sing in my own language, and then they said, ‘It is really beautiful, what are you talking about?’ I explained to them and they went away, wrote some verses in English, came back and asked me to write something on top of that again, but, you see, we are talking about the same thing. Music is our language. It is truer than ever that we don’t need to be from the same country or the same generation.”The EP’s five tracks include “There Will Be Time” as well as “Ngamila” and “Si Tu Veux,” showing the span of lyrical languages too.Is there one song with a message that people can take away from Baaba Maal? He replied instantly: “I know exactly which one. It is from my latest album, ‘The Traveller,’ and it is the title track. On the whole album I’m trying to explain that traveling is the strongest lesson that you can have in life. You can even stay at home and travel, for example, if you put on your TV and you’re open to a documentary, or read a book and get into someone else’s culture and their way of life. Traveling used to be really beautiful, where now it is often hard: there is nothing in Syria and Africa and people are forced to run away. But at the same time, you’re always learning something because your ears are open, your eyes open, and your mind is open. No one can stop you watching or listening, and so we should not be afraid of going to someone else, trying something new.”Baaba Maal’s album “The Traveller” is out now on Marathon records. Maal is on tour with dates coming up in Spain, the UK, and Israel.
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