One of the most progressive bands to have ever come out of Senegambia, Casamance’s Toure Kunda, have dropped an eagerly anticipated new album.
After a ten-year hiatus, the legendary Senegalese band which has now been reduced to a duo, named their new offering Lambi Golo.
Lambi Golo opens with the delicious Demaro (Mandinka for ‘Help’), a warm appeal to help others regardless of origins or need, in which a key role is reserved for the sax of the legendary Manu Dibango. For this album the duo also re-enacted Emma, ??one of their greatest successes, and with the help of guitar hero Santana and rapper Nelson Palacios (Cuban Beats All Stars) gave it a salsa / hip-hop colour. Malang is again an ode to Malang Adama N’Diaye, an artist who has died but whose music still has a warm place in the hearts of the inhabitants of Casamance. Sene Bayo is a funkier piece of music in which the brothers pay tribute to artists from Casamance such as Bouly Sonko (singer, dancer and comedian at the Théâtre National Daniel Sorano), Atab Cissoko and Sene Bayo, a ubiquitous figure in Ziguinchor, the birthplace of the Toure brothers.
For Mister Farmer the brothers switch to English once and invite the Jamaican reggae veteran Kiddus I. Do not expect reggae here, because this song with which the brothers want to emphasise the importance of farming and fishing, got a Latin-jazz touch. But of course on a Toure Kunda album that dash of Afro-reggae is not lacking and that we get in the form of Ka Badiyassi, an ode to the deceased with a leading role for the kora of Seckou Keita, and Oustache, about the importance of sound education. In Soif De Liberté, sung largely in French, in which the brothers express their wish for a free, independent but above all peaceful Casamance, Toure Kunda was assisted by the Congolese singer-songwriter Lokua Kanza. And with the firmly danceable Sotolal, one of the highlights on Lambi Golo, and a call to share your riches with the less fortunate, the album ends roughly as it began.
For those who are still looking for an excellent African disc to use in the summer, we can already warmly recommend Lambi Golo. The Senegalese elephants are back!
