BKO Quintet: The New Tradition of Mali

Each generation reinvents the past. It doesn’t matter where in the world, it’s human nature to want to make a mark on tradition. All the members of Mali’s BKO Quintet grew up with the music and culture of their ancestors, both the hunters and the griots. But together they’re creating something very different on their full-length debut, Bamako Today (released March 10, 2015 on Buda Musique). They’re bringing together those separate traditions, and the result is a unique sound that lives up to the album’s modern title, creating a New Tradition of Malian Music.

“We came together in 2012,” explains the band’s co-founder, percussionist Aymeric Krol. “When there was a state of emergency in the country. Even in Bamako we didn’t know what would happen.”

That sense of urgency communicates on every note on the disc, recorded when insurgents were pressing down from the north. There’s passion and desperation in the singing of Fassara Sacko, while the bass dansongoni of Nfali Diakité prowls and tugs at the music under Abdoulaye Kone’s djelingoni, which moves from melody to roaring soloes like a lead guitar. And underneath it all are the driving polyrhythms of Krol and Ibrahima Sarr, the other percussionist and band co-founder.

It’s the first time anyone has brought together the country’s hunter and griot cultures, and the two sit together with just enough tension to make the sound exciting and vital. But the ingredient that brings everything together on the album is David Kiledjian’s deliberately scuffed production. A veteran of the electronic scene, he captures the strength of each member and the electrifying way they play off each other.

“We didn’t want a pristine sound, the way traditional music is usually recorded,” Krol notes. “David made it sound dirtier and more immediate.”

The band took songs from the Malian tradition and gave them their own interpretation, using the past as a springboard into the future. They altered melodies, came up with fresh arrangements, and made the music into something new – and, importantly, something unifying for Mali. Everything comes front the heart; there’s no a single superficial note.

“I hope we’ve turned the tradition upside down,” Krol says. “That’s what we wanted to do, to create this mix of the past and the present. We call it the ‘Trad Actual Malian Sound,’ but what we want it to be is the New Tradition of Mali.”

And Bamako Today certainly succeeds in that. From the slinky blues of “Comment Ça Va,’” where Sacko’s griot voice reaches full, beautiful glory, to the Afropop of “Donsolu,” with English guest singer Piers Faccini, through to the downright rock’n’roll experience that’s “Kongo Kono,” it remains identifiably Malian, but with its ear appreciatively cocked to what’s going on elsewhere in the world. It pulls the deep history of Mali into the 21^st century.

Perhaps surprisingly, BKO Quintet has already been the subject of a film, BKO On Air, telling their story as it covers the rehearsals and gigs of their first major tour.

“I met director Cris Ubermann and asked if he wanted to come along,” Krol recalls. ‘He documented the real story of the band, even a hunter’s ceremony, and everything that was going on in the country at the time. We’re proud of it.”

Now Mali is stable again. The time of emergency and uncertainty has passed. BKO Quintet can enjoy making music in peacetime. But one thing won’t change: what they do will still be the New Tradition of Mali.