The Original Sound Of Mali

An act of love, preservation, and advocacy from one of the world's most dedicated record labels. Mr Bongo, long entranced by the immense hypnotic beauty of Malian culture, have assembled this double LP as both a celebration and a lifeline, a concerted effort to showcase one of the most sophisticated and vital musical traditions on the African continent at a time when Mali's cultural reputation has been overshadowed by conflict and instability.

The selection moves between well-known giants and rare discoveries with equal care and reverence. The Rail Band, one of Mali's most celebrated big bands, are represented here, the very group that launched the careers of Mory Kanté and Salif Keita. Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako, another major act featuring Idrissa Soumaoro and Kanté Manfila, also feature prominently, and their story is inseparable from Keita's own. As an albino man in Malian society, Salif faced considerable prejudice throughout his life and poured himself into his music as a result, at times performing with both rival bands in a single night, one of the great feats of endurance in the history of African pop.

Perhaps the most remarkable discovery on the album is Idrissa Soumaoro et L'Eclipse de L'Ija, a recording made at L'Eclipse de l'Institut des Jeunes Aveugles, a blind teenagers' institute in Bamako, produced by the German association that supported blind Malian youth. The record was never properly released commercially. It contains the first ever recordings of Idrissa Soumaoro, Amadou Bagayoko, and Mariam Doumbia, the latter two of whom later married and became Amadou and Mariam, household names in world music for decades.

Malian music at its most beautiful, its most human, and its most necessary. May peace and music return to Mali soon.