RFI Musique: What was it like to go through such a dramatic fall from popularity after having achieved phenomenal international success? Mory Kanté: Well, you obviously expect to have a few ups and downs in this profession. I think the secret is to learn from the low periods and gain some kind of personal strength from surviving them. It’s not such an easy business surviving the craziness that comes with having an international hit. It’s hard to keep your head! And, believe me, your nerves have to be pretty solid as well! When all the enthusiasm and hype dies down, there’s no reason to get discouraged. I was actually happy when the hype around me died down. I felt at peace with myself. Griots* are mentally prepared to affront anything in life, you know. There’s an old saying where I come from and that is that “the solution predates the problem!”

You were born in Guinea Conakry, to a Malian mother and a Guinean father, and raised in a family of ‘griots.’ You began your career in Bamako with The Rail Band and then went on to live in Abidjan, before finally moving to France in 1984. What made you leave Africa and come over here?
The reason I originally came over here was to record an album (Mory Kanté à Paris). But once I got here, I realised there was real potential for me – and all the more so, as I was given an exceptionally warm welcome by the African communities who already knew me from my work back home. I went on to perform my first concert in Paris later that same year, playing at La Mutualité in 1984. Even back then the audience was very mixed – there were lots of Africans, but a big turn-out of Europeans, too. That was back at the beginning of the ‘world’ music craze. Then Jacques Higelin invited me to perform at Bercy stadium with him. After that Philippe Constantin, a producer from the Barclay label, got me into the studio to record 10 Cola Nuts, then Akwaba Beach in 1987.I’d already tried to set myself up in France in 1982, in fact, but the problem was I just wasn’t ready to make the move at that point. I ended up feeling so lonely and homesick that I turned round and went back home!

Is Yéké Yéké the musical moment you feel the proudest of in your career?
I made the original recording of the song in 1984, but we did a major reworking of the track three years later to include on the albumAkwaba Beach. That’s the version that catapulted me to the top of the international charts. I have had a life after Yéké Yéké, though! But I have to admit it became my ‘cult’ song – Leonardo di Caprio even used it in the soundtrack to the movie The Beach in 2000. But I have to say, I have very little to do with Yéké Yéké these days! I can quite happily do a concert without including it in the set. That’s not the only thing I’ve done in my career, after all. Yéké Yéké illustrates only one aspect of my musical approach and that’s all about making people realise the value of traditional instruments.

Do you think the means you used to promote the ‘kora’ was the most judicious way of raising the instrument’s profile?
Well, whether you appreciate the artistic direction I followed or not, you have to admit that a lot of people, in a lot of different parts of the world, discovered the ‘kora’, the 21-stringed harp-lute, through my work. I helped promote the venerable instrument used by the ‘griots’, the masters of oral tradition in West Africa. Everything I’ve done from the start of my career has been done with the intention of improving inter-cultural communication and helping African instruments assume their rightful place in the ‘universal music tree.’ It’s worked, too! These days, everyone’s familiar with the sound of the ‘balafon’ and the ‘kora.’ Both instruments have come to be used by groups playing fusion sounds. Traditional African music is recognised and appreciated all over the world now. So I do feel I’ve achieved my goal!

What message are you trying to get across on your new album, Sabou?
Sabou is an entirely acoustic album. As for the musical content, it's intended to remind people that even though my music's been dubbed "griot rock" in the past, I'm quite capable of going back to a more traditional aesthetic. I think I already proved that in 1991 – four years after Yéké Yéké – when I organised a symphonic concert, bringing together 130 'griot' musicians and traditional vocalists to perform at the inauguration of the "Grande Arche de la Défense" in Paris. What I was trying to do with Sabou was use traditional African music as a base from which to invent something totally new, but something that would be accessible to everyone.

What's interesting on the album is sometimes when you're listening to it, you think you hear all these keyboard layers – but there aren't any keyboards at all, in fact! It's the mix of all the different traditional instruments that gives you that impression. It's like a painter who hasn't got the colour green on his palette, so he mixes a dash of yellow and blue together instead!

Mory Kanté Sabou (World Music Network / Harmonia Mundi) 2004
Concerts in Paris: 19 & 20 October 2004 at the ‘Café de la Danse’

*A 'griot' is a musician/storyteller in West Africa who perpetuates the oral traditions of a family or village.