Bajourou (meaning 'big strings' or 'big tune') is the name given to a strain of Malian (Mali) pop music usually played at weddings and social gatherings. Though now predominantly electric, its roots were in 60s acoustic music that borrowed patterns from the kora and the donsongoni (a hunting harp/guitar) and transferred them to acoustic guitars. Lyrics moved away from the usual Manding praise songs to more secular, romantic concerns, mainly sung by women like Fanta Sacko who did much to develop and spread the music.
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Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
The kora is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It combines features of the lute and harp.
A jazz band is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a horn section.
Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
Big Bill Broonzy was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African-American audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, he navigated a change in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working-class black audiences. In the 1950s, a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century.
The music of Mali is, like that of most African nations, ethnically diverse, but one influence predominates: that of the ancient Mali Empire of the Mandinka. Mande people make up around 50% of Mali's population; other ethnic groups include the Fula (17%), Gur-speakers 12%, Songhai people (6%), Tuareg and Moors (10%).
A bass instrument is a musical instrument that produces tones in the low-pitched range C2–C4. Basses belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles. Since producing low pitches usually requires a long air column or string, the string and wind bass instruments are usually the largest instruments in their families or instrument classes.
Djelimady Tounkara is a Malian musician and one of the foremost guitarists in Africa.
Bouba Sacko was a Malian contemporary guitarist.
Live in Chicago is a live DVD by Jeff Buckley, recorded on May 13, 1995 at Cabaret Metro during the Mystery White Boy tour. Soul Coughing co-headlined the show, and only audio of their set was recorded. Originally broadcast on Chicago music video program JBTV, it was released on DVD and VHS on May 9, 2000. In 2007 it was re-released with a different cover to accompany the release of So Real: Songs from Jeff Buckley.
Habib Koité is a Senegalian-born Malian musician, singer, songwriter and griot based in Mali. His band, Bamada, was a supergroup of West African musicians, which included Kélétigui Diabaté on balafon.
Acoustic music is music that solely or primarily uses instruments that produce sound through acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means. While all music was once acoustic, the retronym "acoustic music" appeared after the advent of electric instruments, such as the electric guitar, electric violin, electric organ and synthesizer. Acoustic string instrumentations had long been a subset of popular music, particularly in folk. It stood in contrast to various other types of music in various eras, including big band music in the pre-rock era, and electric music in the rock era.
Dr. Soumana Sacko is a Malian politician and economist. Sacko served as Prime Minister from 9 April 1991 to 9 June 1992 during the first and transitional presidency of Amadou Toumani Touré.
Bassekou Kouyate is a musician from Mali. His band is known as Ngoni ba.
Mali made its Paralympic Games début at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, sending a single representative to compete in powerlifting. In the up to 75 kg category, he lifted 130 kg - finishing last of the seventeen competitors who successfully lifted a weight. He therefore did not win a medal.
Madiga Sacko is a rural commune and village in the Cercle of Diangounté in the Nioros Region of western Mali. The commune includes the villages of Guédéguilé, Souranguédou and Bagamabougou as well as the main village (chef-lieu) of Madiga Sacko. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 12,690.
Falaye Sacko is a Malian professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Ligue 1 club Montpellier and the Mali national team.
Aminata Sacko is a Malian footballer who plays as a defender. She has been a member of the Mali women's national team.
Nahawa Doumbia is a singer from Mali's Wassoulou region.