Live at the Royal Festival Hall (Live Ep - Baaba Maal)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Live Ep - Baaba Maal
Date:	26/08/08 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent funky ethnic music

Disadvantages: Bit short

This is a 4 track CD album by Baaba Maal which lasts about 40 minutes, it's taken from a Live concert at the Royal Festival Hall and was released in 1999 by Palm Pictures. Much of Baaba Maal's work is older stuff and this is a decent insight to a more recent concert.

The best album I have of his in my opinion is the compilation album: Palm World Voices: Baaba Maal but I couldn't find a link to it to get it suggested, so I settled for this one. The track African Woman is particularly good. Baaba Maal is a Senegalese artist now in his 50s, he is from the northern city of Podor on the Mauritanian border and sings mostly in Pulaar, obviously it's quite unlikely you or I can understand him but you can feel the general sense of the story by his voice.

This is not just plain yela folk music but fuses it with the hottest types of salsa, mamba and funk to ensure that this is one of the most danceable albums ever made, even if you don't know why you are dancing. It's 40 minutes of constantly evolving music that sounds good either as one piece or seperately as tracks. The percussion is also excellent throughout, it really is like an African version of James Brown in his prime playing an array of styles!

1. Mbolo
2. African Woman
3. Koni
4. Douwayra

Summary: Great fun to dance to