Songhoy Blues’ ‘Héritage’ is a Beautiful Tribute to Malian Music of the Past and Present

Songhoy Blues rose to prominence with their inspiring story and unique sound of rock and desert blues. After a civil war broke out between the North and South of Mali in 2012, the Islamist group Ansar Dine took over the North and enforced a strict religious lifestyle. Amongst other things, they banned music.

“Everything was going very fast,” Garba tells OkayAfrica. “We were always on tour and traveling. We never had time to record all the songs we wanted.” Come 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown gave them the break they needed to return to their first records and work on new tracks.

“We were on standby here in Mali,” he remembers. “All we could do was meet with our calabash (a percussive instruments made of gourds). So we decided to make this acoustic album to return to our roots.”

Why acoustic? “We come from the North where music is traditional. Calabash and ngoni (strings suspended over a calabash drum) — we were born with and began with this kind of music,” explains Garba. While Songhoy Blues’ initial records were acoustic, the band sometimes lacked the equipment to make it sound good on stage.

“It’s hard to play acoustic in Mali because you need good engineers, backlines and amps. It’s easier to play electric drums and guitar,” he says. “But even our rock ’n’ roll songs were first created in acoustic [form].”

Héritage is dedicated to all Malian tribes. “Music is a universal language,” says Garba. “I can make music collaborations with people in London, New York or Japan. But we asked ourselves: Why is it not possible to do such a project in Mali? Nobody has made an album like this before here.”

The band did not have to travel far to reach these different musicians — including Afel Bocoum, Rokia Koné, Neba Solo and Madou Diabaté. Bamako is a cultural melting pot and home to people from all over the country. “It influenced us a lot,” says Oumar. “When we moved here, we discovered another side of Malian music. The album is also a melting pot of our experiences.”

“Toukambela” begins Héritage with a story that has been told even longer than sung. It advises Toukambela, the name of a woman married to a man with several wives, to stay calm and avoid jealousy. Featuring the traditional flute and a ngoni string instrument, Songhoy Blues reworked “Toukambela,” which was first recorded by Orchestre Kanage de Mopti in 1970.

“When we write a song, we want to talk about something [socio-political],” says Oumar. “We play and create melodies, then decide which subject to present in the song. For example, on ‘Dagabi,’ we wanted to talk about the bad side of some people in society.”

“Dagabi’s” lively energy, brought by the Senufo xylophone from Southeast Mali, betrays its serious lyrics on purpose. In Oumar’s experience, people are likelier to engage with sad topics through a danceable rhythm.

At this point in our conversation, Oumar says, “Garba, your guitar is very loud,” and Garba lowers the volume of his ambient improvisations.

“We used a rhythm called takamba, one of our heritage rhythms that only exists here and in the surrounding countries,” says Oumar, likening takamba to women’s roles of keeping culture alive. “We don’t want to lose this rhythm.”

“We have a patriarchal society here,” he continues. “People put women in a secondary position. That’s not correct to us. If you really know the story of Mali, you know that women held a great place in our pre-modern society. They were heroes in our history.”

Their favorite song, however, is “Issa,” meaning river. It addresses the need to protect rivers as a life force to prevent desertification and catastrophe.