Reverence to Mory Kanté

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Mory Kanté.

© RFI / Edmond Sadaka

By: Joe Farmer Follow

36 mins

In December, "L'épopée des Musiques Noires" honors the great figures who died in 2020 ... 

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On May 22, 2020, the illustrious Mory Kanté passed away at the age of 70.

A few months earlier, he was still on stage with Maestro Boncana Maïga, during the resurrection of the famous Maravillas of Mali.

"L'épopée" by Mory Kanté follows the evolution of African music at the end of the 20th century.

If he was acclaimed in 1987 when the title

, it would be unfair to reduce his destiny to this hit which, of course, was his sesame to roam the international stages.

Let us never forget that Mory Kanté's career began long before this global success, when he joined the Bamako Rail Band in 1971. The adventure of the Guinean griot was just beginning ...

It was the saxophonist and conductor of the Rail Band, Tidiani Koné, who was the first to sense the talent of young Mory Kanté and invited him to join this very fashionable group at the turn of the 70s. Salif Keïta was the singer. principal of the group and, for the moment, Mory Kanté is content to observe and modestly accompany his new accomplices.

He is only 21 years old and must find his place in this very promising musical ensemble.

However, he has for him the cultural heritage transmitted by his elders.

After the departure of Salif Keïta from the Rail Band in 1973, Mory Kanté was propelled as the new singer of the orchestra and gradually abandoned the balafon for the kora, of which he wanted to master all the harmonies. 

Salif Keïta and Mory Kanté in July 1985 in Algiers (Algeria).

© Patrick AVENTURIER / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Now at the forefront, he learns to dodge distrust and welcome compliments.

Some contest his status as a griot, others celebrate him as the new king of the kora.

His years in the Rail Band will therefore be very formative for this young man full of hope who experienced African independence and very quickly understood that musical traditions could be enriched by cultural influences escaping from other territories in the world.

Although he was sometimes criticized, Mory Kanté realized very early that the opening was an opportunity and the experiments became his chance.

Over the years, Mory Kanté drives the point home.

It continues to feed on very diverse tones to the chagrin of purists who reproach it for turning away from the original source.

he then asserts his filiation to his griot ancestors and insists on what he calls "human cultural heredity" to counter his detractors.

Whatever one thinks of Mory Kanté's speech, it is clear that his words sought harmony between peoples and appeasement when too many voices were raised to deny him his legitimacy as an artist.

"The terrible child", as the press called him at the dawn of the 1980s, nevertheless progressed step by step and managed to seduce an increasingly large public.

It was in 1981 that his epic accelerated.

The American label Ebony Records offers him a record contract which allows him to reach an international audience.

The

album

 will be the first step towards a daring re-reading of the Mandingo musical tradition.

If this attempt to export his ancestral heritage beyond the African continental borders brings him little unanimous recognition, it is in Paris that Mory Kanté finds a more generous reception.

He arrived in the winter of 1984 in France.

He is not known and struggles to convince his interlocutors to let him give concerts and record.

However, he succeeded in persuading producer Aboudou Lassissi to listen to him and to concoct an album.

Mory Kanté in 2009, in concert in Chaville, near Paris (France).

Edmond Sadaka / RFI

Mory Kanté seeks to gain notoriety.

He has the chance to discover a very open French musical landscape.

What is clumsily called "world-music" resonates on FM airwaves freshly freed from the state monopoly by the will of President Mitterrand.

The Parisian African diaspora takes advantage of this lenient atmosphere to make its musical treasures heard.

Touré Kunda, Angélique Kidjo, then Youssou N'Dour, will be the luminous stars of this Africa in Paris.

Mory Kanté welcomes this providential effervescence with pleasure and greedily accepts requests.

The singer Jacques Higelin invites him on stage in Bercy, Manu Dibango invites him to participate in "Tam-Tam for Ethiopia" alongside Ray Lema and Salif Keïta, among others ... His name circulates in the small world of record industry.

Finally, after months of patience punctuated by more and more performances, Mory Kanté signs with Barclay and releases the album that will change everything.

Throughout his life, Mory Kanté listened, learned, progressed, and understood the importance of being an open and altruistic artist.

Talking to him about classical European music or African-American jazz was always a good opportunity for this talkative interlocutor to launch into musicological analyzes which could be perplexing but of which he certainly had the key.

He who had scoured the stages of the whole world, from New York to Helsinki, Montreux, Montreal or Algiers, had time to observe the social disparities in the different countries he crossed.

His status as Ambassador to the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, had given him the impetus for constructive civic engagement.

And each time a microphone allowed him to express his convictions, he seized it to call for unity on this planet which he had circled many times.

Mory Kanté and Reda Kateb at RFI.

© RFI

One of the last beautiful performances of Mory Kanté on record dates back to 2019. He had then participated in a children's tale entitled

 whose texts were read by the actor Reda Kateb.

This project received the crush of the Charles Cros Academy.

Mory Kanté has never ceased to perform, to tell his story, as if to perpetuate the soul of the griots of which he saw himself as the universal legatee.

On May 22, 2020, his voice fell silent but his memory will resist the erosion of time. 

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