Balimaya Project: “We’ve come so far in a short space of time”

“Everything is pigeon-holed,” declares Yahael Camara Onono, the London-born djembé player and mastermind behind Balimaya Project. We’re talking about the group’s new album, When the Dust Settles, and the conversation has instantly turned to the music industry’s struggle to categorise African music. “When you go and see an ‘African’ music selection you’ve got no idea what to expect. Am I going to hear Salif Keita, Fela Kuti or Ladysmith Black Mambazo?”

Growing up in diasporic Harlesden, Yahael was aware of the histories and complexities of African music from an early age; his father was a drummer from Senegal, his mother a dancer from Nigeria; though it was his grandfather who gave him his first djembé at eight, and djembé master Sidiki Dembélé, an important mentor, who taught him about his West African heritage and inspired him to follow his own path.

“People play from a place of ignorance,” states Yahael, “they’re not aware of the pedagogy of the music and they don’t apply it properly.” Balimaya Project was born out of this frustration, and to showcase Mande culture.

In 2018 Yahael was in Dubai playing djembé in a jazz band at Pizza Express, but something didn’t sit right. “There’s a lot of djembé players in the UAE, but 99% of them aren’t really djembé players,” he explains. “The djembé is used to get club settings going. To me, that’s quite disrespectful. You’ve got people playing djembé from non-djembé-playing countries, dressed up in make-up and leopard print like Zulu warriors, it’s so cliché. More than that, it’s stereotypical, it’s racist.” So, in between sets he and his bandmates would discuss the possibility of creating music which instead shone a light on West African instrumentation and polyrhythms.

When he returned to London, Yahael started Balimaya Project in 2019; the group was to be a conjoining of jazz and Mande music, with the aim of showcasing the beauty, complexity and power of this ancient, yet still living, musical tradition to the world.

Mande is an umbrella term referring to an area once known as the Mande Empire, which covered a vast region of West Africa, from parts of Mauritania and Senegal in the north to Ivory Coast in the south and eastwards to Mali, Burkina Faso and the north of Ghana. “Mande music is the most complex music in the world,” states Yahael, “It’s not just the different rhythms, but the depth and versatility of the language, and all the different ethnicities and cultures within it.”

The potentially daunting task of platforming this wealth of musical tradition didn’t faze Yahael. He drew together an intergenerational group of 16 musicians from London’s webbed social circles – some you might recognise from Kokoroko and the SEED Ensemble – all united through their lived experience of being second generation migrants. It was an exercise in authenticity. “You can’t really convey the truth of Mande music if you’re trying to substitute sounds and simplify processes,” he says. “You would never have a drum kit instead of a dundun.”

The band released their first album, Wolo So, in 2019. Percussion-led and recorded live, the album showcased West African instrumentation and approaches mixed with tight jazz arrangements; it was joyous, daring and it earned the group a Songlines Best Newcomer award last year. Behind the album was a clear message: to encourage a better understanding of the richness of Mande music.

“People think for something to be folkloric, it has to be ancient,” explains Yahael. “That it was made by your ancestor in the village in 1 BC or something, but a lot of [the rhythms] are contemporary.” He goes on to say that because Mande traditions are still alive, new sounds are created all the time. And because of the richness of the traditions, these new sounds still carry historical meaning.

This is why these rhythms are such great conduits for storytelling. “In Mande music the polyrhythm is very important,” Yahael tells me. “The depth to the music, how the djembé works together with the dundun and the kenkeni and the sangban is a story in itself.”

This confluence is exemplified by ‘A Prayer for Our Parents’, from When the Dust Settles. The song uses the kaniya soli rhythm, from a family of Guinean rhythms used in ceremonies to mark a boy’s transition into manhood. “So, while the specific event is the initiation, the implied meaning is transition,” says Yahael. The polyrhythms themselves are telling the narrative within the track, rhythmically escalating over stunning guitar runs and crashing cymbals to give the listener an impression of movement in a song which speaks of migration.

If the first album showcased Mande music, this second work goes further. Yahael describes its making as akin to going to the barbers. “People go to the barbers because it’s a haven, not just to get their hair done. Some people there are even bald! People come for community.” When the Dust Settles is a celebration of the music that can be created when you have a bond with your bandmates, and what emotions can be explored because of that bond.

This bond, and the group’s understanding of Mande music, was fostered when Yahael took them all to Senegal before recording the new album. When I ask him about his motivations, his reply is poetry: “I wanted everyone to eat the food that they would eat back home, to see a place where everyone looks like you and to know the feeling of people speaking to you in their language first, because they’re not looking at you any differently.”

“I wanted them to see Goree Island, one of the last slave outposts, and see where a lot of our ancestors were taken. For them to see the door of no return and know what it is to look out at the Atlantic, the most western point of Africa, and see nothing but blue. I wanted them to understand that we’ve come so far, in a relatively short space of time.”

“Slavery was not that long ago, and the places that kept people in chains, those chains are still there. There’s still blood on those stones. It’s important to know how resilient we’ve been. And you can’t just tell people, you have to show them. That creates bonds, and inspires not only creativity, but brotherhood and family.”

“It was a different band that came back from Dakar,” he adds.

The experience of touring as a group of Black men also encouraged the feeling of community. “I’m a six-foot four Black guy, so when I’m travelling on my own, I feel eyes on me,” confides Yahael. “Travelling with people who look like me and identify in similar ways is important. Having a tour manager who understands the nuances of how festivals might treat us is important. Not having to code switch is important. Knowing I’m not going to have to fight to be believed when I encounter racism is important.”

Yahael now wants to export this sense of community to the world, to share the feeling of brotherhood that has come through the project and inspire others to find the same.

He’ll have a big chance to do this at the Barbican in October. Enlarging the group to 25 musicians and special guests including Afronaut Zu and Obongjayar, Balimaya Project will share the power that emotional vulnerability can engender.

After that, who knows how many people the project will touch?

“I’m just gonna ride it till the wheels come off,” Yahael tells me proudly, smiling from ear to ear.

See the Balimaya Project perform at the Barbican on Monday, March 25, as part of a very special anniversary concert celebrating 25 years of Songlines. They'll play alongside Salif Keita, accompanied on the kora by Mamadou Diabate, Le Vent Du Nord and Divanhana. To buy tickets, click here.

This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Songlines (#191) magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today

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