Exile

He calls his style ‘Baye Fall Gnawa’. But the religious music of the Baye Fall (a Senegalese Islamic sect) and that of the Moroccan Gnawa are merely two of many influences on Nuru Kane’s pleasantly easy-going but at times lightweight new set. He could equally well have mentioned reggae, flamenco, blues or Western pop. With his dreadlocks and colourful patchwork clothes, he may look as distinctive as the great Cheikh Lo, but Kane blends his African influences with a more European – and, at times, unashamedly commercial – approach.

That said, there are several entertaining tracks in this wildly varied set. Kane has a laidback style and a gift for writing tuneful songs that are dressed up with arrangements using a whole variety of mostly African acoustic instrumentation. He plays guitar and gimbri (the Gnawa three-stringed lute), while the 12 backing singers and musicians add anything from kora, ngoni and balafon to oud, calabash and djembe percussion – as well as bass and programming. On the stately and melodic Afrika’ he eases from West African influences to a dash of hip-hop, then changes the mood with the gently languid and brooding ‘Exil, in which his at times half-spoken vocals are matched against impressive violin work from Bou Abdallah Khelifi. Kane first heard Gnawa, the rousing, mesmeric music played in North Africa by the descendents of black slaves, when he was on holiday in Morocco, and he brings out his gimbri for the easy-going singalong ‘Bambala’. He also shows the influence of the Gnawa tradition on the more edgy, rhythmic and driving ‘Sadye’, a song driven by hand percussion. Mixed in with all this are the Western influences. ‘Niang Balo’ is a pleasant, if unremarkable laid-back guitar blues. ‘Corriendo’ is an excursion into Spanish Gypsy territory that also features a dash of hip-hop and impressive, wailing violin work. Then there’s ‘Yes We Kane’, an acoustic, swinging Western pop stomp, and ‘Issoire’, a lilting and then cheerfully upbeat and entertaining reggae anthem. This is unlikely to prove one of the great releases of the year, but Kane might well turn out to be an African crossover success.