Sababu

Five years ago, the Burkina Faso-born kamelengoni master Aboubakar Traoré and his group Balima released a splendid debut album titled Tama Tama – and the good news is that Sababu is even better. Aboubakar’s eight compositions here are rooted deep in griot tradition but not constrained by the music’s ancestry. His kamelengoni (harp) playing and the balafon of Geoffrey Desmet create a timeless sound bed but Désiré Somé’s grungy electric guitar and Zonatan Dembélé’s pulsating bass propel the music into the here and now. Aboubakar Traoré’s finest playing comes on the acoustic instrumental, ‘Djuru Kan’, but his songs – sung in a rich baritone voice – pack a punch, from ‘Gnani’, which demands to know why there is so much poverty in a continent rich in gold, diamonds and uranium to ‘Turamagan’, a praise song to a legendary Mande warrior on which he duets with the earthy vocals of Mariam Dioubate. The only complaint is that Sabadu’s 30 minutes worth of music is way too short.