Obituary: Baba Commandant

Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band were not an 'African' or 'world music' group per se as much as they were a 'rock band who happened to be from Africa.'

Over the course of three world tours, they consistently scorched stages and left audiences stunned, resulting in frequent claims that what had just been witnessed was one of 'the best live shows ever' due to the band’s raw energy.

The Sublime Frequencies label released all three of the Burkina Faso group’s albums, starting in 2015. As their label head and manager, Hisham Mayet, stated, “…they need to play clubs, where people are dancing, drinking, sweating. It’s not meant to be a museum gig.” 

Mixing urban and traditional sounds, the donso ngoni instrument was often used as a lead instrument. (It is akin to a smaller kora, but played horizontally like a guitar and is used by the Donso traditional hunters in Baba’s region of Burkina Faso)

Burkina Faso has been officially named the 'most neglected crisis' internationally for the past two years straight by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) due to approximately one million people being displaced following a military coup in 2022. In many ways, the band’s music also has faced the fate of being lost amidst the noise of mass media’s sheer volume and short attention spans.

Sadly, after another triumphant tour, the band’s leader and primary vocalist, Baba Commandant (ak Mamadou Sanou), returned home late last year to Burkina Faso and quickly succumbed to malaria. He was only 51 years old. Over a half-million people die annually from the disease (most of them children under age five) and that number is on the rise. The band’s final album was dedicated to their bass player, Massimbo Taragna, who passed away in 2022 at the age of forty.

May their voices live on.