The Key of D (iakhaba)



 Music is an integral part of life in Diakhaba, but not in the way I expected. Instead of griots singing of my family's ancestors, people blare the radio constantly. A griot of today's world, the radio here sings the praises of Akon and Rihanna, Beyonce and Alpha Blondy. What happened to the traditional music that West Africa is so famous for? While it's important to acknowledge that musical globalization has stretched its murky fingers into the villages of Senegal, nonetheless it's tradition that interests me the most.

Eric Charry, author of Mande Music, describes the four spheres of professional musicians. The stories of the hunter heroes are extolled, often by a calabash harp called a simbi. The griots sing the praises most often of individual people - rulers or warriors. Then there are the djembe players who are present at most life cycle events - baptisms, circumcisions, weddings. Finally there are the modern musicians who draw inspiration from the three other spheres. In my village, besides the modern musicians on the radio, it's the djembe players - particularly at weddings - that have appeared most frequently.

I am awfully fond of the djembe player in Diakhaba, Fode Sylla, ever since he came to my house and we rocked out together. I decided to invite him over to my house again, along with 2 or 3 women who are known for their singing prowess, to do some recordings for a radio show. Half the village showed up. The women brought buckets of peanuts to shell. One person brought candy to distribute to everyone. And one by one they stepped forward to share their songs. One woman present referred to me as a toubab. The others quickly corrected her. (What's wrong with your eyesight? Can't you see she's black like us?) The woman got on her knees, dropped her headscarf at my feet, and asked my forgiveness. Then she sang a song to the group about the importance of being welcoming and accepting of foreigners. Other song themes included humility, remembering people not present, and the value of confiding our secrets to each other.

As the moon looked on, my grandmother got up to sing a song. It was a song about me - about my courage in coming to Senegal and how she hopes I won't forget my village when I go back to America. ("Bilai walai - on God's name I won't," I said.) Finally, someone asked if I was going to play my flute. The Malinke verb used for playing an instrument is xa fo, literally "to speak," as if the instrument were an extension of the body, speaking the music that comes from inside the musician. I spoke the flute while Fode spoke the djembe until the party broke up.

Clearly, music is more than a succession of sounds strung together. It tells stories, recounts histories, and reinforces values. The danger of replacing this with American pop music is too obvious to be mentioned, yet I was heartened to see all the generations gathered together that night, enjoying the music of their mothers and aunts and grandmothers.

How sweet the sound, indeed.