FARATUBEN - Sira Kura - DLP

There are 6,593 kilometers between Aarhus and Bamako - and a deep socio-economic rift. That is why people from Africa have long been drawn to Europe - unfortunately, the reverse is seldom the case. "Sira Kura", the debut album by the Danish-Malian band Faratuben, shows what is possible when musicians move out of their own comfort zone in order to meet at eye level. The music of the band, who lives in Bamako, is no further variant of the Afrobeat, no retro-blissful memory of Fela Kuti, as is so often the case. It is an electrified version of the centuries-old bwa and bobo music that differs from the traditional kora sounds of a Toumani Diabate and Salif Keita in having more pressure and tempo. The three daughters Mikas Bøgh Olesen, Jakob de Place, and Mads Voxen came to Mali as part of an exchange program of the Conservatoire de Arts et Metiers Multimedia (CAMM), where they heard traditional Bobo music for the first time. Bobo, as the French colonizers called the people of the Bwa, an oppressed minority living in Burkina Faso and in northern Mali. The percussive music of the Bwa is driven by various percussion instruments and the sound of the balafon, a kind of xylophone with calabashes hung underneath. The three Danish music students were absolutely thrilled by the dynamic sound that accompanies religious ceremonies in Mali as well as weddings and parties.