root salad Noura Mint Seymali


Funky Azawan for contemporary times. Rita Ray gets to the roots of the voice of Mauritania.


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ackstage, deep in the bowels of the Barbican Centre in London, a sound check is underway in prepa- ration for the sold-out second edi- tion of the Sahara Soul concerts. Musicians from the Sahel, fine tune collaborations, make staging adjustments, catch up with other performers and squeeze in interviews.


It is in this creative bustle that I seek out Noura Mint Seymali’s dressing room and find her perched cross-legged on the settee. She is draped from head to toe in the Mau- ritanian mulafa with boxes of pizza and var- ious takeaway foods on one side, and on the other, band drummer-cum-manager Matthew Tinari who translates.


Noura’s ardine lays in front of her: she is alert, ready to engage.


What is this kora-like instrument, and who taught her how to play it? “In Maurita- nia there are male and female instruments, the tidinit (or ngoni as it is called in Mali – think Bassekou Kouyaté) for men, and the ardine for women. One of the reasons the ardine is female is that traditionally women play percussion. If you look at the ardine you see that you can also play percussion on it.” Noura then plays a cracking drum solo on the instrument’s gourd base. “My grand- mother Mounina who was famous for play- ing the ardine taught my sister then me to play, I learned from both of them.”


Then in bounds her husband Jeiche


Ould Chighaly, acclaimed tidinit player and guitarist. They have been working for years combining the ancient instruments with modern ones. “But now we are more focused and the sound comes through more than in our previous recordings.” He looks at the boxes of untouched food and then looks to Noura, concerned, but she contin- ues the interview.


Both Noura and Jeiche are iggawin – griots – but their role is changing. “We are still the holders of [musical] traditions; we are the ones responsible for the continuity of cultural history. The griots have the right and the authority to play in traditional con- texts like marriage and other ceremonies. In the olden days griots were also like journal- ists, responsible for spreading messages – this is one aspect that has changed, espe- cially in these days of mass media. Today, griots do things other than play music. Some are even in the government!”


“Responsible” has been uttered a few times: does Noura feel weighed down by duty? “I am very happy, thankful, that I come from such an amazing tradition and legacy. My father was Seymali Ahmed Vall,


he wrote our national anthem and was responsible for taking Moorish traditional music into new contexts.”


Noura gets her writing skills from him. Her stepmother, the late Dimi Mint Abba (cover of FR89), was Mauritania’s foremost vocalist. The much loved Diva Of The Desert was the first to take Moorish music to an international audience and was a huge influence on Noura’s vocal development. “I was very passionate about music and start- ed singing around the age of nine”. At sev- enteen she was touring Europe as Dimi’s backing singer. “I have brothers and sisters who are musicians too, I was fortunate to grow up in this family. It is a family where fusion of music was very much alive. I am also continuing this tradition of mod- ernising the music of the iggawin.”


N


oura’s first internationally released album Tzenni (Glitter- beat) was proof of her intent. What is driving her to modernise? “I would like to popularise Mauritanian music and have it evolve and advance. As times and culture have changed I feel the music should also change. On the album we use guitar, bass and drums and when you add these instruments to the ardine the music becomes something else. I want to continue the evolution of the tradition as our culture also evolves.”


Is she happy with the results of her quest to take the music into a modern con- text? “I am very happy with the results, we all are, the album has put Mauritanian


17 f


music on the map a little bit. I am happy to have the opportunity to bring more atten- tion to this music. It’s gratifying when we see the audience discovering and appreciat- ing our music.”


But how did Mauritanians receive Tzen- ni with its psych-rock flavours?


“The young people really loved it. There are some that think our music should stay how it was traditionally, there are always haters [!], but we have a lot of peo- ple behind us who are proud of the band.”


Jeiche is anxious that his wife eats. So


when he offers pizza I decline and slip away. Stop Press! The new album Arbina


(God) is out. How does it differ from the first? They email back to say “Arbina is harder-hitting and tighter, the result of touring and maturation as a band. Tzenni was in many ways a rough experiment on how to put Moorish music into a pop con- text; Arbina is a confident slice of that recipe with higher-grade ingredients.”


And the name you’ve given to your music, Azawan? “Azawan is a word that is specific to Mauritania and the tradition we’re working from. It refers to Moorish musical ensembles. By adding bass and drums and concocting pop arrangements, the band is essentially an updated, funky Azawan for contemporary times.”


It is indeed a more accurate and cooler moniker than the ‘desert rock’ that is usual- ly bestowed on Noura’s music.


www.nouramintseymali.com F


Photo: © Judith Burrows


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