YouSaid · the spoken record

Baaba Maal

lines on the record: 40
first: 2009-03-15
most recent: 2009-03-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, I think It will be difficult for me to take an iPod because when it's discharged I will not be able to recharge it. I would have taken that. But I will take my guitar, maybe.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My order book will be Cudepilon The David Job is in French. This book of poems, really great book he is born in France. He never saw Africa, his half friends half African, but the way that he describe Africa is really exceptional. I see myself inside of it.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The word one love seems to sound for me like the whole world singing together, something really positive one love the singing about love and I think love is the solution of our problems It reminds me in a small community in a small village people living together but sometimes taking time and singing a song together”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not afraid of that because since I was child, I was always surrounded by people everywhere I go playing music, invited in a ceremonies or people coming to visit me, talking to me, so if I have some time to spend just on my own in a desert island, it's fine.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love to be near Dakar, the capital of Senegal. There is a place called Tubab Jalau, near the Ocean because I am a fisherman, you know. Water give me a lot of strength when I just sit down and look at all this water and look at all the boats floating on it and the fishermen doing their job and listening to the time passing and I forget about all this problem like every human being you have so many problems in your head and that you want to resolve and you need just to go away from it sometime.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm not pessimistic. I'm very optimistic because I'm a musician and I travel a lot in the African continent and I can say that all the people that I met, especially the young generation, when I talk with them I see a kind of energy which is there and they will find their way to make things happen.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Between stuff, there is not, people don't take the time that it needs to start a project and to stay there and to give advices to people who handle the project on the ground and to make it grow and to keep it and to make it work till till the end because Africa is a big continent, it's a lot of countries, it's a lot of communities. It's come so far. The future of the continent we should think deeply that it should start. By the people from the continent to be involved in making it happening.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I know. Yes, Maybe people who reach the money or get the money and bring it to Africa, they should get some advice from people who really know where to take the money.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We know that Africa is passing through a lot of turbulence, but at the same time it's a great place. Energy is there sleeping and waiting for people to come to wake it up. When you look at women, for example, the women, the associations of women and the power of women going into politics, into business, into culture they start to have a power and a positive power for the community. If everyone knows that these things are happening and how to support them, how to support this energy, great things can happen in the continent, you know.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's not fair to not connect African people like I say because Bono, Bob Geldoff and all these people who are very ambitious did something really great to talk about the problems of Africa but at the same time I think also they will need to be connected to the Africans it's not just the big cities where people understand French or English or know what's going on looking at the TVs most of the people who need this support are in the small village and these people don't speak English don't speak French they listen to their culture they listen to their famous musicians or writers or historians or historians who can bring the information back and to make them be involved in the big process”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a I think it's not normal when you talk about a particular place and the people who live in it and you don't make them involved when people come to invest things in Africa, build classrooms or schools or hospitals or any kind of thing. I think people in the continent should be involved at the beginning of the process.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Senegalitani. From a very good friend who died some time ago, a corrupt player. The Korra is a traditional. African harp, I can say is really close to the harp. And this is one of the very big classical African songs. And he did play it very, very well. And I was a very big fan of his father. And when I met him first, his father was too old for me to join me in my band. I said, if I can't get his son to come to play with me, that would be great. And he joined my band and we did great things. I can't forget about him.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's great that music can play that role, especially in Africa, because it's one of the most important way of communication. Maybe my father didn't know because at that time music couldn't feed someone who was using it like a profession. This is why he was so afraid and so anxious for me to be a musician, but now I think if he was alive he would understand that it's great to take the music to help people to talk to them, to have some use for your community.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, she will not be very surprised of that because she did have a character. She was very beautiful and open woman trying to see how she can help people when people have problem near her and she would really like to see her children doing the same thing. And I think I got that way of being with people from her.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You would not surprise her. In the early years my mother did help me even to write some of these songs because she was a popular song singer at the village, you know.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She knew about it. She came to see me sometime performing when I was in the capital of Dakar, and she can't recognize a talent, I think. In me and she knew also that no one can stop me, and my mother knew exactly where I was going. But she never So really the success of Baba Mara.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so I think so but what I knew really is when I went back to my hotel I slept nearly twelve hours because I was so relieved from that.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is it? It did. And when I come near the microphone and I sing the song of Senegal and I see the faces of the players looking at me and I think about how far is the Senegal, this country and how small Senegal is in this competition and then later on when we beat France I say something great did happen.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was really exceptional. And I was a little bit nervous because I knew France was a very big team in Senegal with a small country. But inside of me, something was saying to me that... Something great can happen that day.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a strange thing, but we had to do it because Paris was the center of old music coming from Africa and a lot of things were happening there.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel the code but I was prepared for the cord. That was until the worst fame for me the worst thing is to be alone, to be far away from home, to be far away from my family, and to come from an environment where everything that you leave from morning to night was just natural. You do everything naturally, and there everything seemed to be organized, you know.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a very big shock, you know, because I was used to take my guitar and to play music anytime in any place. I couldn't do that in Paris or away someone will come and knock on your door and say this is not the time for to play music and just to feel that you are alone because no one talked to you no one seem even to look at you and this is something that you don't know when you grow up especially in a small village in Africa.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Baby Manga is one of these women who was very famous in the African music because she sing in her own language. She come from Central Africa and put it on a very western good arrangement of music with horns and drums and electric guitars. and her voice was so loud and so talking to everyone in the continent because that song did get very famous and I think it's one of these melodies when you hear it you just think about the African continent you don't think about nowhere else”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, in Senegal, because people think about music like something that belongs to all of them. So when people come to a performance, it's not just the musician who make the concert, who make the ambience, it's the musicians and the public can't go from eight o'clock in the after dinner till five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock. It can go from all the time. You know, it's a lot of vibes going on.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I said to myself if I decide to be a musician, I have to know about African West African music, so I take Mansur and two other friends and we take the journey because in the traditional way this journey everyone who is a professional musician since a long time did take it since centuries to discover the country because we did not have TV, we don't have radio, we don't have CDs and you have to travel to go to people who know about it to listen to them to wait for them to give you the chance to understand if they don't accept you to understand it you will never get it”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be a musician is not a problem for you. And I made Manzo Segui when I was very young. His father and my father did know each other when they were very young, so you were connected for the music, you know.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was very good at the school, and I was lucky I got it and come to Dakar. I went to the university and I knew that I was a singer and my friends were saying to me go to the radio, do some recording. You can't be very famous. I started to try to go, but I was afraid that my father, who was believing that I should be someone really important in the society, will be very angry after me. And the first time when he hear me singing songs at Rajo, you know, you always recognize the voice of your child. And he called me and said, I know that this song is from you. I say yes. I take all my courage and say that's me, yes, it's me. But the song was talking about reality. It was a very good positive song talking about the historied reality there and in my community. And he said to me If you promise me to do songs like this.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was listening to music, what is reading was someone that I really see really close to what I know. You know, we have a lot of melodic instruments in my community like violence, like flutes, and his voice was a lot melodic. And this song, Amen, since I have a father who was calling people to come to brain singing in this religious party, the word amen The first time I did hear about it, I say this is a song I want to listen.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew it since I was charred. I surprised myself sometime when I was lying down, and the rest of the family being together me at one corner of the house just thinking I was always thinking something was always going in my mind and thinking we will stay connected always everywhere I go, but I knew I don't belong to this family. I belong to something different. I do not know what because I was very young, but I could feel it.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was not very difficult for me to have friends at the school, especially from the teachers because I was very small, the smallest one in the classrooms, but also one of the brightest one, and at the same time I was someone who I was not taking so seriously the education, but at the same time I understand everything that they did teach me.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I told you I was a very curious child asking questions to everyone who was near me. I am very grateful to my father to take me to school. You know, he did second world war. He stayed sometime in France, and then when he came back he did recognize that education was very important for the future of his children.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just the river. I was playing with the oldest kids near the river, and suddenly we see all the horses and odors animals being very nervous, and in the other side of the river we heard very strong, deeper voice roaring and coming, and then I say what's going on? And the boy says, it's the lion. And I was just hypnotized by the fact I'm going to see a lion. Suddenly I saw the lion come near the river and have some drink and go back. So I say wow, that's a line.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lion is an animal that I I am a bit afraid of, but I have a lot of respect of the land because, like you say in Africa, the lion is the king of the continent. When I was very young I saw lions the first time. How close?”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How many brothers and sisters do I have? Because my father used to have two wives to my mother and another wife or something like 15 brothers and sisters in the family and the aunts and uncles. And everyone is a kind of someone who can give education in his own way to the children. I was very lucky because I wanted to know everything and I was using these opportunities to ask everything that I wanted to know about the culture, about the music, about the background. about history about the family I was so curious to know.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He had a very beautiful voice. I used to wake up early very early in the morning by five o'clock in the morning just to listen to his voice. It's like his voice is going into the savannah when you listen to this voice it have a big impact on you.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was really interesting. I think I really get a lot of things when I was young. My father was a fisherman, but at the same time also he was amused and he was calling people to come to pray at the mosque. He was a kind of religious musician. My mother was a popular singer. But, you know, you can't be a popular singer without using it like a profession because you have your work at home. You work in the fields or you are a fisherman in the afternoon when everything is finished. You can play music.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am very comfortable with that, you know, and I think it's normal because if you look at my background, you can understand that I am not from a family of musicians, so it was very difficult for me to be a magician. At the north of Senegal, you know, even when you get very famous or very rich or you become someone very important, you are still a part of your community. When I came to the music, I said to myself, I'm doing something, a lot of people were doing before. People were always playing traditional African music using traditional history talking about the community, but they never get this chance to go to school and to be able to deal with this music and to travel with it and to get opportunities. So if I have it, I have to chair something.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Orchestra Bab is one of this first group that really work on the traditional music because they pick up some of the traditional songs and adapt it to everything that we saw it was coming from the West. When you listen to Orchestra Bab you see a lot of melodies on a lot of chords that come from Cuban music and for me at the time it was very like a miracle you know to see people using Western instruments using guitars and bass and drums like in the West but being able to put together traditional African songs and this is why I pick up this song.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did you find it difficult to choose just Hrex? Oh, yeah, it was very, very difficult because I am a nomad myself, you know, like a nomad, you travel and you discover things, you see things, you appreciate things. So I was traveling, listening to music from the other communities, and all the music that I did listen to most of them have a big impact in my mind. So it was very difficult for me to choose and to pick up just eight songs. That's not easy. Well, I'm sorry about that. You've managed to do it. Tell me about it.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I come from a cultural background where the history play a big role, and we know about history listening to these storytellers who use the music to tell these stories we learn about our responsibility from the music. If you want to be really well recognized in your society, like a musician, even you have a very beautiful voice and people love you everywhere you come, you have to have something into your lyrics because music, it's not just the melodies and harmonies, it's also the words, you know, this is what stay in the mind of people.”
2009-03-15 · Desert Island Discs · Baaba Maal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source