West African Griots and Musical Personalism

In many parts of the world, there is a sense that certain people were born to be performers. Throughout much of West Africa, this sense is applied to an entire population group (some might say a “caste”) known as griots (pronounced "GREE-oh"). The designation of “born musician,” here, is not only relevant to talented individuals or select chains of performers from the same family (like country music’s Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr, and Hank Williams III), but rather to large extended family networks. For Wolof speakers in Senegal, for example, people with the last names Mbaye, Mboup, Ngom, and Samb would be recognized by many as having griot heritage (Tang 2007). These days, last name does not equal destiny. People from griot families have gone on to serve as government ministers, businessmen, Muslim clerics, doctors, and work in other occupations. But a strong perception remains that people from griot families remain “griots” at their core—that they have certain innate musical and verbal abilities and are predisposed to certain kinds of work and behavior.

Griots are not the only group in West Africa whose family heritage is tied to their occupation. There are similar groups consisting of woodworkers, leatherworkers, blacksmiths, and weavers. What is interesting is that while each of these other groups work with tangible materials (wood, leather, iron, thread), griots’ raw materials are sounds and words. Many griots are expert entertainers. Both in traditional settings like weddings and in more visible settings like popular music and TV, they make up the majority of singers, dancers, and actors. But griots’ traditional functions extend beyond entertainment. They are responsible for maintaining family and regional histories, for negotiating between families, for communicating the wishes of leaders, and for publicly praising or shaming individuals based on their adherence to moral standards (basically, “toasting” or “roasting” people at functions and gatherings). Situations where music, quick wit, or articulate speech are important tend to be the situations where people call on griots.

Later in this chapter, we will learn about what it means to be a griot in this day and age. We will be looking specifically at a griot family of drummers, dancers, and verbal artists in Dakar, Senegal known as the Sing Sing Family. The Wolof griot tradition, however, is just one of many griot traditions in West Africa; several other ethno-linguistic groups have griots who specialize in different instruments, songs, stories, and musical styles. The next section of this chapter is intended to give a broader perspective on the entire region known as the “Western Sahel and Sudan” where griots are a prominent feature of many local and national cultures. We will learn about some of the region’s historical, cultural, and geographic distinctions before zooming in to focus on Senegal and its capital city of Dakar.

Situating West African Griots 1/10: The Unity and Diversity of the African Continent

The idea of “Africa” as a single unified place can be a powerful political idea, but the continent also houses incredible diversity, with an estimated 1,500-2,000 languages spoken and significant cultural differences from one region to another. This map gives a small sampling of the continent’s many spoken languages.

Map of African Languages, created by "SUM1," Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Situating West African Griots 2/10: The Countries of West Africa

In this chapter, we are not dealing with Africa as a whole, but rather, the top half of the region of West Africa. When people mention West Africa they are usually speaking about the western bulge of the continent beneath the Sahara desert. Take a careful look and try to learn the names and locations of some of the countries in this area. Examples in this chapter come from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and Northern Cameroon.

Countries: Western Africa, created by the US Department of State, Public Domain

Situating West African Griots 3/10: The Geography of West Africa

Even within West Africa, geography and culture can vary dramatically. West Africa features four distinct climate zones: (1) the Sahara Desert; (2) the Sahel (a dusty semi-arid region); (3) the Sudan (grasslands); and (4) the “Guinean” and “Guineo-Congolian” forests. The griot phenomenon is especially prominent in the Sahel and Sudan

Bioclimactic Regions Map, US Geological Survey, Public Domain

Situating West African Griots 6/10: String Instruments

Later in this chapter, I discuss Wolof griot drummers in Senegal. But contrary to the notion that “African music” consists mostly of drumming, many griots specialize in string instruments, including native fiddles, banjos, and harps. Try to remember the names of the musicians you hear in this chapter. Too often, people only remember vague details when they hear about things from Africa, but doing so can make the continent seem more distant and “other” than it ought to.

In this video, world-famous Malian griot Toumani Diabate, who specializes in a kind of harp called the kora, speaks about the release of his first album to feature his son, Sidiki.

Situating West African Griots 7/10: Arab Musical Influences

Centuries of trans-Saharan trade have shaped the religion and culture of the Western Sahel and Sudan. Islam is the most popular religion in the region, and much of the music shares qualities with Arab music from north of the Sahara, including extensive ornamentation, microtonality, and, melodic improvisation.

Microtonality is the use of pitches that fall between the notes of the Western chromatic scale (the 12 keys of a piano or 12 frets of a guitar fretboard). Ornamentation is the use of extra notes or embellishments around the main notes of the melody. Melodic improvisation is when musicians create new musical sequences on the spot. Listen for these features in this recording of Mauritanian griot Chaykh Well Bacha (pictured in white) who plays the banjo-like tidinit.

[Audio] Chaykh Well Bacha, "1er Mode Karr, Partie Noire," recorded on June 3rd 1965, on Anthologie de la Musique Maure, Mauritanie Vol. 1-2 Hodh Oriental, Ocora, LP

Situating West African Griots 8/10: Africa and the Blues - Part I

In the Americas, the griot music of the Sahel and Sudan is strongly felt in African American blues styles from the Southern US. Griot influences are noticeably less prominent in music of South America and the Caribbean. These differences are largely due to patterns of enslavement in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In Cuba and Its Music, Ned Sublette writes that “There were… two distinct poles of African influence set up in the New World: the basic layer in Cuba was Congo [the “Guineo-Congolian” regions in the maps above]; that of the southern United States was from the western and central Sudan—the opposite end of the African slaving territory, with a completely different climate, religious environment, and music. The Congo arrived in large numbers in the United States, to be sure, and their influence on African American culture has been amply noted, but the evidence from both the music and the French slaving records is that the first basic track came from a region from Senegal and the Gambia and points east, across a wide swath of savannah below the great Sahara Desert.”

African Slave Trade, created by KuroNekoNiyah, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Situating West African Griots 9/10: Africa and the Blue - Part II

In the blues, we hear many of the same features discussed in Slides 6 and 7 above: (1) The use of string instruments; (2) Microtonality (i.e. “blues scales”); (3) Ornamentation; and (4) Melodic improvisation. Note the similarities between the two recordings presented below.

“Goge” [also the name of the instrument] performed by Adamou Meigogue Garoua

“Stack o’ Dollars” by Big Joe Williams, featuring either Chasey Collins or "Dad" Tracey on fiddle

[Image top left] Vièle Haoussa. Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, created by Ji-Elle, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. [Audio top left] Adamou Meigogue Garoua, "Goge," recorded in 1964, on Africa and the Blues, Connections and Reconnections, Neatwork, CD. [Audio top right] Big Joe Williams, "Stack o' Dollars," recorded on October 31, 1935, Big Joe Williams, Volume 1: 1935-1941, Document Records, CD

Situating African Griots 10/10: Sabar Drumming

One family of instruments played by Wolof griots in Senegal is called sabar drums. These drums accompany dancing at weddings, baptisms, and street parties in the capital city of Dakar, a rapidly growing metropolis of over 3 million people. Most sabar drums are hourglass-shaped with a tight sheepskin membrane on top. Drummers make a variety of different sounds, striking the drum with one bare hand and one stick.

Sing Sing Rythme led by El Hadji Mbaye, Photo by Author

The Sing Sing Family

My introduction to the Sing Sing family came not in Dakar, but in New York City. Working as a gigging musician and a music teacher, I had long enjoyed exploring unfamiliar music, especially different rhythmic ideas. I knew a little bit about sabar drumming, and I ultimately hooked up with two drum teachers (a father and son) named Mar and Morcoumba Gueye. After learning from them for about a year, I started drumming for dance classes at the Alvin Ailey Extension, a well-known center for African diasporic music and dance in New York. It was at these dance classes that I started regularly drumming with some Sing Sing Family musicians who had emigrated to the US and who had brothers, sisters, and children who were still very active in Dakar.

I traveled to Dakar each year from 2013 to 2017 and spent a lot of time playing, recording, interviewing, and just hanging out at the Sing Sing family house on Rue 23x22 in the city’s Médina neighborhood. The principal drum troupe associated with the house is called “Sing Sing Rythme,” and these words are painted in large letters on the wall near the house’s entryway. It is there that people from all over Médina, and the city as a whole, can find drummers and praise singers if they need someone to play for a wedding, a baptism, an association meeting, or a street party. In addition to their role in these settings, the family serves an important function for the city’s indigenous leadership structure, known as the Lebou Collectivity. The Lebou are a group that have occupied the land where Dakar was built since before the French colonial occupation, which began in 1857. Patriarchs of the Sing Sing Family have served as baj géwël or “chief griot” to the head of the Lebou Collectivity for generations. The family also has a strong presence in Senegal’s popular music scene. Notably, Sing Sing Family drummer Mbaye Dieye Faye helped innovate a style called mbalax along with singer Youssou Ndour in the 1970s. Ndour’s group (with Faye on percussion) has dominated the world of Senegalese popular music ever since, and the younger generation of Sing Sing Family drummers accompany other stars of mbalax music like Elaj Keita.

While it’s easy to find videos of the Sing Sing Family’s extraordinary drumming and dancing on YouTube, there is an aspect of their performances, and that of all griots, that comes across more clearly when you are at an event: the music is intensely personal. By this, I mean that while groups like Sing Sing Rythme often perform in front of hundreds or thousands of spectators, many musical moments are very closely focused on specific people in attendance. The person might be a dancer, who does a quick dance solo in front of the lead drummer while he improvises his own solo to mirror the dancer’s movements [Video 1]. It might be a member of the audience who becomes the subject of praise poetry and speeches [Video 2]. The “person” might even be a spirit, such as Leuk Dawur Mbaye, one of Dakar’s protector spirits, whose presence can be felt at Lebou healing ceremonies called ndëp [Video 3]. For griots, making music personal is not only an artistic choice, it is their business model. Through their music, they build relationships with patrons, people who show their appreciation for the musicians’ personal attention with gifts of money, large and small.

Video 1: Sing Sing Rythme plays for dancer Mas Mbaye

Video 2: Mame Ndiaye praises and sings taasu for her daughter-in-law

Video 3: El Hadji Mbaye (drumming, in black) plays for the spirit Leuk Dawur Mbaye as he enters the body of spirit medium Adji Mbaye (in brown and white)

In the following sections of this chapter, I show that the personalism of this music—the ways that musicians continually focus their attention on, acknowledge, and praise specific people during the course of an event—shapes broader aspects of urban Senegalese society in two ways. First, personalism affects the ways that people connect with their friends and neighbors. Griots are not the only people who take care to acknowledge and praise other people in their midst. Daily life is filled with acts of generosity and gratitude, and these acts help build large social networks that help people survive in the city. Second, personalism changes the nature of politics in the city. When griot music operates in the political sphere, it often combines praise with demands for resources from political leaders. The political aspect of griot performance, as we will see, prompts a great deal of criticism, especially from people who believe that art is better when it is used to criticize the political establishment, not to praise it.

Personalism in Daily Life

It is sometimes said that “life imitates art.” In other words, situations that are depicted in works of fiction find a way of playing themselves out in the real world. I don’t think there is any reason to separate “life” from “art” in our experiences of music—listening to and making music are as much a part of living as anything else that we do. But because musical moments can feel very intense, there are ways that they come to shape other aspects of our lives. For example, many people can point to music as the source of some of their greatest friendships. People who share the same tastes, go to concerts together, create playlists for each other, or dance or perform together can start to feel incredibly close to one another. In Senegal, the connection between music and friendship goes beyond music’s ability to create shared experiences. Music creates a style of social interaction—what I have labeled “personalism”—that impacts how people relate to one another. There are ways that people acknowledge each other and show generosity that seem to flow from musical settings into people’s daily lives. In this sense, life does “imitate art”—griots’ artistic model of encouraging, giving, and showing how grateful they are impacts the behavior of lots of people who are not music performers themselves.

The praise poem in Video 2, above (“don’t go, I’ll never leave you as long as I sleep and drink water”), is typical of a style of praise poetry called taasu, which is made up of short, rhythmic repeated lines, and is often accompanied by drumming. These poems are usually recited in the second person (featuring the word “you”) to someone who is in close physical proximity. Taasu is performed either by griots, or by women when they celebrate together at weddings and baptisms, or at meetings of mutual aid associations called tours. But these aren’t the only situations in Dakar where people shower others with attention and praise. When acquaintances encounter each other on the street, it is a regular occurrence for them to compliment each other, offer prayers, ask about each others’ families, and to say “thank you.” People take a great deal of time to acknowledge each other and show affection every time they interact. In a crowded city like Dakar, people might exchange these personalistic greetings with dozens of others that they see on the street on a daily basis. And through daily encounters filled with compliments, people come to feel very close with dozens, sometimes hundreds of others living around them, establishing broad networks of friendship and support. Praise might be the specialty of griots, but there is an extent to which everyone praises everyone, all the time.

People’s gestures toward one another also go beyond words. Just as griots' praises and rhythms are rewarded with cash from patrons at a sabar event, personalism in Dakar entails the constant giving of gifts among friends. When I first arrived in the city, I was struck by a request that I would hear from time to time: “That’s a nice shirt, can you give it to me?” It seemed rude from people I didn’t know well, and strange coming from close friends. I worried that people might be trying to take advantage of me. But then I began to notice a pattern. One day, I complimented my friend Modibo on an outfit he was wearing, a tailored ensemble made with black and white patterned cloth, he found me the next day and had the outfit in a plastic bag, cleaned and ironed, as a gift. It was as if when I had said “that’s a nice outfit,” the “can you give it to me?” part was implied. After being gifted several more outfits in the following weeks, I felt that I should either stop complimenting people, or be more generous in gifting things to the people around me. I chose the second option. Obliging peoples’ requests for clothes and other material items, or giving without being asked, are important ways that people show, through their actions, that they personally care for each other. These kinds of acts are central enough to Wolof culture that several proverbs speak to the extent that people are intertwined with one another, even through their possessions:

Lu waay ñàkk, waayam a ko amul
Whatever someone lacks, it is because their friend does not have it

Nit nitaay garabam
Man is man’s medicine
(Implied meaning: You can’t solve your problems without other people)

Lëpp a ngi ci ñit ki
People are everything
(Implied meaning: It is important to have good relations with many people)

Through the value of personalism, griot music becomes significant for reasons beyond how it makes people feel in the moment it’s being performed. Griots set a standard for eloquent praise and encouraging showy acts of generosity that others copy in lesser, more subtle, ways on a day-to-day basis. Much the way that griots and patrons show personal care toward one another by exchanging songs, rhythms, and gifts at a sabar event, neighbors establish links of friendship and solidarity through the words and acts that they perform towards one another on a daily basis.

Personalism and Politics

Although we don’t always recognize the subtle ways that our musical experiences shape our day-to-day social interactions, most people do have a sense that music has a role in politics. From the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter in the U.S., and around the world in movements like the 2012 Arab Spring or the 2019-2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, songs and anthems have inspired people to stand for social change and to oppose powerful forces in society. In Senegal, a hip-hop movement called Y’en a Marre energized the opposition to President Abdoulaye Wade in 2012, leading to his electoral defeat. The movement sought to end nepotism and corruption in the government, which had enriched a few while much of the country faced water shortages and blackouts. Hip-hop tracks like “Faux, pas forcer” and “Waxal sa Baay” (both can be found on YouTube) spoke bluntly about the President and his need to step aside for the sake of the nation.

Even if griot praise styles like taasu resemble rap (taasu is spoken rhythmically, not sung), griots are often seen as having the opposite political function as rappers. Many praises sung by griots are sung for the people with the most political power, not against them:

Video 4: Griot praise of local politician Seydou Gueye

Because of their adulation of those in power, some West African critics don’t regard griots very highly. To these critics, modern griots do not live up to their title of “masters of the word” or keepers of a valuable historical tradition. Rather, as Malian scholar Cherif Keita writes, “very often griots display an opportunistic attitude toward their art... a direct reflection of the profiteering which has pervaded the administrative structures inherited from colonialization” (1988, 58).

In an op-ed in one of Senegal’s leading online news sites, a scholar and blogger named Alassane Kitane (2016) complained about the extent to which the country’s music serves the political elite. True art, he argued, ought to be above the fray, speaking only to higher ideals. Kitane wrote, “In Senegal, the craft of politics has finally colonized every dimension of social life. Accomplished artists of worldwide fame are subservient to the political lobbies that we all know. Others with less artistic richness have found the means to compensate for their lack of genius: the search for celebrity through their forays into politics.” Kitane is concerned with the fact that political money drives several aspects of Senegalese society. In the lead-up to elections, it is commonplace to see politicians widely spreading their cash reserves throughout town, giving money and supplies away to civic organizations, religious leaders, private enterprises, and even individual families. During these periods, every block of every street becomes inundated with political messaging, much of it driven by griot musicians. Political candidates are celebrated in parades, rallies, and songs blaring from passing trucks stacked with speakers. We often think of “political music” as a powerful and positive corrective to society’s ills, but the same sentiment might not apply if musicians are understood as being the mouthpieces of a political ruling class whose public presence is inescapable.

Rethinking Music and Politics

The above perspectives on praise in everyday life and in politics present a contradiction: the same kinds of griot practices that encourage generosity and closeness among neighbors in the street can bring griots a little too close to the political ruling class. But, as in the case of rappers—where “political music” is most valuable because it’s opposed to the political establishment—there is another contradiction. How can “political music” create change while purposefully remaining distant from the central spaces of political power? In a recent book, political scientist Eitan Hersh (2020) coined the term “political hobbyism” to describe a style of engagement that is familiar to most Americans, where doing politics is mostly limited to refreshing our newsfeeds, voting on election day, and other low-effort acts, like engaging in online arguments or making donations to candidates. Music can be a form of political hobbyism too, especially when we listen to distant celebrities who sing about issues in hopes that even-more-distant politicians will act. When politics centers on our relationship to news, ideologies, and political celebrity, rather than on our relationships to other people around us, it becomes impersonal.

For griots, doing politics isn’t simply about praising the political establishment, even if it might often seem that way. In the settings where political figures come into face-to-face contact with the public, griot praise affirms connections between people at several levels of the social hierarchy. In these settings, grassroots civic leaders play an especially important role in maintaining close ties to those in power and to the general population. Griot music inspires people to participate in politics by injecting events with personalism—the value of person-to-person connections and the belief that these connections are what allow people to flourish. In the following video, we see Khady Fall, a representative of a local women’s association, praising a politician named Pape Abdoulaye Seck (Senegal’s Minister of Agriculture). She brings up “family” connections that she has with him and notes his generosity, but she also subtly hints at his obligations, at the ways she expects him to continue helping women’s associations like hers. Music is featured in this video in two ways. First, there is the drumming, whistling, and dancing that regulates the temperature of the event throughout the speeches. At certain moments, like when Fall takes the stage, the drummers launch into rhythms that turn the rally into a celebration. Second, there is taasu poetry (“you’re all sleeping!/wake up family!/Khady has come to water your crops”), which leads into an emotional speech where a woman praises Fall, noting how she cares for other women (“she doesn’t sleep until we sleep, before she goes to bed she calls us”). The speeches, taasu, and rhythms turn a large scale rally with hundreds of women, into a highly personal affair, where everyone in attendance feels connected to one another through networks of friends, family, neighbors, and associations.

Video 5: Praise for Khady Fall, and from Khady Fall to Pape Abdoulaye Seck at a political rally

This style of politics is not without problems. Although calling on powerful figures in government to redistribute resources among local women’s associations is generally a good thing, it doesn’t guarantee that benefits will be evenly distributed to others who are not there to support the party in power. In the worst case scenario, it can even encourage government figures to illegally enrich themselves to satisfy their supporters. Despite these drawbacks, an important lesson here is that people show a powerful level of commitment when they feel that they have been personally engaged in the act of politics, and music can provide a powerful means of engagement. Hersh argues that “political hobbyism” (impersonal politics focused on distant candidates and issues) is not sufficient for building political power around the changes that we want to see in the world. Many committed organizers from all points on the political spectrum have a different understanding of politics, where building power means recruiting people to their side through on-the-ground engagement with other individuals. When urban community organizers perform outreach with food assistance or when Klan members organize opioid recovery programs, they are trying to show people around them that their way of doing things can improve people's lives. Politics is not only about the views you hold, but also the networks you create by building relationships of trust with those around you. To be clear, there is no equivalency between these community organizers and the Klan—a group predicated on hateful, racist actions. Having a personalistic approach to politics does not guarantee that the political networks that people create will be a force for good in the world. And here is where we can understand the criticisms that people make of griots and their politically driven music: when griots generate personalistic sentiment for political leaders who do not have people’s best interests at heart, the results can be deeply troublesome. Nonetheless, it might be useful to think of the political potential of musical personalism—of showing people that you care about them, individually, and that you care for their well-being—as an essential part of creating social change.

How might music be used to cultivate networks and relationships that have an enduring political impact? The insight about the shortcomings of political hobbyism can lead us to put new value in relation-building practices inherent in the music that griots make. When we look at the music we call political, it is worth asking not only what the message is, but also how the music connects people to one another. It may be rare to see griots stand independently in the face of society and pronounce hard-to-swallow truths. But what griots do exceptionally well is to create music that brings people to feel like they know one another, individually—to feel like they are personally valued within the community.

Sabar Drum Lessons

At this point, you’ve probably learned enough about this music that you might be curious to learn more about how some of it is put together. The following lessons offer a rudimentary introduction to sabar drumming. Once you’ve learned the rhythms in these lessons, you may want to go back to some of the videos above to see if you can follow along.

Sabar Lesson 1/4

Sabar drummers have a kind of "language," where different spoken syllables represent different drum strokes used in performance. This language is an important way for the drummers communicate new compositions to one another. In this lesson, you will learn how to pronounce and mime two drum strokes using this method.

"Cek,"pronounced "check," is the sound of your stick hitting the side of the drum. It's not used much in performance but is common in teaching settings. While you pronounce the word "cek," pretend to hold a drum stick in your right hand (or use a pencil) and mime hitting the side of a drum.

Spoken

Drummed

"Gin," pronounced "geen" (with a hard "g"), is a bass stroke. When you say the word, make it lower than "cek." After getting used to the pronunciation, try miming it by hitting your left hand, palm down, against a surface or imaginary drum.

Spoken

Drummed

Now try combining the "Cek" and "Gin" strokes with the rhythm below. Even if you can't read the notation, you can still pronounce the sequence of strokes indicated on the bottom, and learn the rhyhtm using the audio examples provided.

Spoken

Drummed

This pattern will be used again in Lessons 2 and 3 to help you follow some more difficult rhythms.

Sabar Lesson 3/4

Now, using the three strokes from lesson 2 and the "gin" (bass stroke) from lesson one, we will learn a type of accompaniment rhythm known as mbalax, which is also the name for a genre of popular music that uses the rhythm. This lesson prominently features the voice and drum of Sing Sing Family percussionist Tapha Mbaye.

The mbalax pattern featured below is very common in sabar drumming. Before trying it in rhythm, try pronouncing and miming each stroke of the 5-stroke repeating sequence from the top line of the transcription. Practice the strokes one by one, until you can smoothly move your hands and speak through the entire line. If you're reading the notation, notice that the Right Hand strokes are written on the top line, while the Left Hand strokes are written on the bottom.

Now continue practicing the mbalax pattern while hearing it against the Lesson 1 pattern:

Spoken

Drummed

Finally, see if you can say/tap the Lesson 1 pattern while listening to the mbalax pattern on its own:

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the concept of “the griot” and the many musical styles created by griots, from their mastery of string instruments like the kora to praise singing to sabar drums. We have examined griots’ relevance over a broad geographic area in West Africa, their centuries-old history, their global musical impact (including their impact on the blues and African-American music via the slave trade), and the effects that their music has in the contemporary urban environment of Dakar, Senegal. Griots can be appreciated from a purely musical standpoint—regardless of what you understand about their role in politics, their artistry in music, dance, and poetry can be inspirational. But we can also recognize that their practice makes an impact beyond moments of performance, and beyond music itself. Griots model a style of social interaction in which people are generous with their attention toward one another and take care to acknowledge others in their midst. They encourage acts of giving to the point where “what’s mine is yours” becomes a central tenet of many relationships. Griots are also deeply involved in “the craft of politics,” from building the reputations of political leaders to infusing political events with music and praise that highlights people’s connections with one another. It is safe to say that the centuries-old role of griots in West African societies remains relevant in the modern world.

Comprehension Questions

1. What instruments and musical features are distinctive of the Western Sahel and Sudan? What is unique about this region’s musicians?
2. What does Alassane Kitane mean when he states that “the craft of politics has colonized every dimension of social life?” How does his critique apply to musicians?
3. How is “personalism” defined throughout the chapter? What are some examples?

Discussion Questions

1. Who are some familiar musicians that you think of as being “political?” What makes their work political?
2. Griots fortify relationships by singing praise songs, giving speeches, and being attentive to dancers’ rhythms, but there are many ways that music can bring people to feel personal connections with one another. How has music fortified the personal relationships in your life?
3. How might music be used to cultivate networks and relationships that have an enduring political impact?

Works Cited

Further Reading/Listening

The Faye Family and The Géwël Tradition

Awesome Tapes from Africa - West Africa

Afropop Worldwide - Hip Deep in Mali: Growing Into Music in 21st Century Bamako

Afropop Worldwide - Hip Deep Series: Africa and the Blues

Excerpts from In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali

African Underground: Democracy in Dakar (documentary on rap and politics in Senegal)

Baye Fall / Yaay Fall : Reverberation1 : Women Praise Singers of Senegal (documentary on Muslim women singers in Senegal)