Last night, Laura and I had the privilege and pleasure to see Mamadou Diabate at the Art Center in Carrboro. He was the star performer in a benefit show that highlighted the Publik Kreativity Drama Krew, a community theater troupe from the Alexandra township in Johannesburg. The kids from Jo’burg were great – authentic, a bit unpolished and quite talented.

Mamadou was just awesome. This huge, quiet guy from Mali comes on stage and sits down on a milk crate in front of his amp, plugs in his kora (!) and proceeds to tease the most deliciously lyrical, breathtakingly acrobatic and the most joyfully soaring melodies from his ancient instrument which he made from a gourd, cow skin and strings. I think he played the entire Behmanka album plus one encore. The crowd was small, but quite enthusiastic. He’ll be back in the area for the Eno Festival and I very much look forward to seeing him there.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 13th, 2006 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Palmwine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.