Baaba Maal Interviewed by musicOMH

Wednesday June 03, 2009

With the possible exception of Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal is Senegal’s internationally best known musician, with a recording career that now spans 20 years.

So it may seem strange that this fisherman’s son, who looks at least a decade younger than his 55 years, has taken eight years since his last studio album Missing You to come up with Television, a polyglot opus of nine tracks that clocks in at just over 43 minutes.
He’s ready with the first of several explanations. “I didn’t want to rush to make this album. I did the last one acoustic, with traditional African elements, and recorded it in a village,” he recalls. “This time, I wanted to do something different. I had to think about what to have, and who to do it with, where to do it. And I did take my time to make it happen.”

Television certainly is something different. In multiple languages and styles it takes a gentle dance around the globe, running a gamut from the hypnotic title track through the Cuban-style lilt of Dakar Moon to the electronic treatments on A Song For Women and Miracle. It’s a chilled, downtempo affair, I suggest, that may surprise some of his long-time fans.

“This (chilled-out vibe) is something I wanted to have,” he says, leaning in. “People expect African music to have a lot of drums, to try to make people to dance. I wanted to do something where it was more about the melodies, harmonies, and the way of singing and collaborating with people.”

Baaba Maal at an impromptu house party in Hammersmith, London, 2009