Goy Boyro
"We have our own blues band. It isn't bad; it only sounds that way," reads the opening line in Malian singer and guitarist Samba Touré's brand new music video to "Goy Boyro", the opening track off his forthcoming third longplayer on Glitterbeat Records. And indeed, the first sounds that hit you are not what you might expect:
“It’s contemporary music from Mali,” Touré insists. “Maybe our traditional music has changed. We live all in the same world wherever we are on that planet, we all have the same music on radio or TV, we hear the same music in movies, so even if we don’t really know what’s rock music in Mali, we hear some everywhere every day, it has become part of our inspirations, easy inspirations because it’s sometimes so close to what we do traditionally. If you attend a traditional ceremonies in villages north of Mali, you’ll see that musician always use distortion at maximum level but they don’t know anything about rock or blues. But believe me they do some. And desert blues…to me it’s a way to name music from the region north Mali, Niger or Mauritania but it has no more sense.”
What's even more remarkable is the companion music video to "Goy Boyro", which poignantly showcases "the spirit connection between West Africa and Afro-American culture as well as the scourge of racism," as we revel in the music. Watch the full video below. Samba Touré's new album "Wande" (The Beloved) releases May 25th.
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