I was lucky enough to visit my sister when she was in the Peace Corps in Mauritania some years back, and we also visited Mali, Senegal and Gambia briefly. The experience affected me in many positive ways, including turning me on to West African music.
Never appreciated West African music before? That may be about to change. Want to see some fascinating scenes of Senegalese street life, and hear some entrancing music by the famous blind Bambaran couple Amadou & Mariam, with Manu Chao chiming in? Sure you do!
Amadou and Mariam are all about their love story that began at the Institute for the Young Blind in Bamako, Mali. Translated from the French and Bamako most of their songs go something like this:
“I love you!” - Amadou. “No, I love you.” - Mariam. “No, I love you more.” - Amadou. “You kidding? I fucking love you more.” - Mariam.
They chant variations of this theme over Malian blues-rock guitar and driving beats, coming up with some kicking music. Who knew two blind Malian middle-aged lovers could rock it so well.
Also, if you have thoughts about the story of the song and the video, please share. I think I get the general drift, but I don’t know much French beyond the “Comment ça va?” “ça va” greeting everyone exchanges in West Africa.
Senegal Fast Food
p.s. You can buy downloads of their music at Calabash.
Kuchinich introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney today.
He explained to a reporter that Cheney should be impeached first, because if we started with Bush, then Cheney would become president, and we’d end up having to impeach two presidents in a row.
Been feeling too sad and serious? Let’s turn to some Canadians in the 80s, Men Without Hats. They have just the thing: The Safety Dance. This has to be one of the best music videos ever. My effusive thanks go to cdubble.
You can rate any videos on my blog; just click the stars under the video. Since someone else told me about this video, I’m gonna let myself rate it too. 5 stars!
Update: Darn, the video I originally embedded was pulled down from YouTube due to copyright claims. There’s another which you see below, but the visual quality is not as good. My apologies. How I wish I’d downloaded and saved the earlier one (look up TubeTV for Mac).
As compensation, I’ve added an extra treat below the video - more Men Without Hats videos, yay!
Sorry to the person(s) who likes to read the complete posts in their feed-reader, but I had to start splitting my video posts with the “more” quicktag. My blog was taking forever to load because I have so many videos on one page. Do click through, though. I promise you they are the most entertaining music videos you can find anywhere.
In other news, Vermont senators approved a 