Blues: An African Sonic Response The question came innocently, primarily because the recording industry has given us a habit in the last hundred years of naming, marketing and categorizing music based on the geography, the political correctness of the times (or lack thereof) and/or ethnicity – i.e. race records, gypsy jazz, Brazilian jazz, rhythm & blues vs. rock ’n roll, British rock, blue eyed soul vs. soul, gospel vs. soul gospel, and so on. It makes total sense since the nature of the business of selling requires the necessary “careful” identification of any product for appropriate distribution – in this case, music. In order to appreciate the complexity of music as a creative and living entity, it is important to first appreciate the context in which it is born. First and foremost, music made by humans is an expression of cultural power. American blues, in its earliest and deepest expression, is the crystallization of West African musical aesthetics sculpted to withstand the winds of the political, economic and socio-cultural hurricane that American slavery brought to bear on the African populations of the Southern plantations of North America. West African musical aesthetics are the architecture and foundation of the sonic expression of African socio-cultural experiences of Blacks in America. Second, the musical aesthetics that formed what we now call the “blues” subconsciously reminded Blacks in America that they
were Africans, and that while they had left Africa, Africa never left them. The blues is the African sonic response to the American socio-cultural and political experience of Blacks in America. You can hear the musical foundations of the Delta blues in the music of Timbuktu, Mali, performed by “banjoist” Bassekou Kouyate with the vocals of his wife Awa Sacko, or in the guitar of Ali Farka Touré or in the music of Salif Keita. African music is the root of all of humanity’s music. We should never lose sense of the actual chronology of time that defined our collective African genetic human lineage and cultural heritage. We should remember that Africans developed on the planet five million years ago and have been dispersing to the far corners of the globe ever since. We should also keep in mind that the Suez Canal was only dug in 1859, which means that prior to that, one could walk from Senegal, West Africa, to Beijing, China… and African folks traveled. Third, the creation by Blacks in America of the “American blues” is the umbilical cord to Africa that fed their collective sacred cultural consciousness in North America and bonded them as a people. The blues is that cord, that connection to the aesthetics of the Motherland, that allowed them to survive as a people in the socio-cultural, economic and political American experience. It is important to remember that 99% of African Americans come from the west part of the African continent, and while they
Iconic Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist bluesman Ali Farka Touré singlehandedly brought “desert blues” to an international audience. Photo by Tagles1
Musician Bassekou Kouyate is internationally known as master of the ngoni, an instrument similar to the banjo. Photo by Richard Kaby2
By Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D. I was asked, “Is there an African blues?”
Blues Festival Guide 2020
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