Malian "Songbird" Oumou Sangare appeared in Seattle on Saturday, April 10th, 1999.

She has been called everything from the Madonna of Mali to the most important female singer in West Africa today. If you ask Oumou Sangare herself, she is likely to say she prefers the title "Songbird of Wassoulou," a line from one of her songs and a reference to the region of Mali where her family originates. Sangare is proud of her heritage and of the female musical tradition that she represents. But she is also known for the new attitudes and musical developments she has given to the genre. African popular music fans in Seattle will have the rare opportunity to experience Sangare's music on April 10th. Rakumi Arts, with support from the Seattle Arts Commission, presents Oumou Sangare in an 8 pm performance at ACT (A Contemporary Theater) 700 Union Street, downtown Seattle. Advance tickets at $20 are available from Wall of Sound (2nd and Bell) and through Ticketmaster outlets, 628-0888. Tickets purchased at the door will be $25.
    Wassoulou is also the name given to the music performed by Sangare. It is based on a combination of old and new musical traditions found in the region. The older tradition, sogoninkun, is a mask dance performed during harvest season by young men and women to give praise to the farmer who has brought in the largest crop. It is a colorfully vibrant and energetically-charged acrobatic dance form that features drumming and call-and-response choral singing. The singing, generally done by women, praises the fruits of hard labor and the rewards of cultivating the land. Sogoninkun merged with a more contemporary musical tradition in the late-1950s and 1960s called kamalengoni, named for a six-string harp used by young hunters. Though the kamalengoni is an ancient instrument, its popularity among young village boys gave ancient songs of brave hunters and wild animals a new twist when it also accompanied songs of forbidden love and intense social and political encounters. This music was subsequently considered socially subversive and was forbidden by elders in the community. But, in the world of popular music, the very things that made kamalengoni objectionable contributed greatly to the rise in popularity of modern Wassoulou. By the end of the1980s, an economic crisis and news of government corruption catapulted the popularity of Wassoulou throughout Mali, in other parts of Africa and in the Western world. Ironically, the young stars of Wassoulou are predominantly women, originally the keepers of songs in the sogoninkun tradition. And though the intricate and rhythmically complex sound of the kamalengoni harp is always present, it lives alongside electric guitars, keyboards and modern percussion instruments.
    Oumou Sangare was one of three top young singers in the 1980s who were credited with giving Wassoulou national and international recognition. Nahawa Doumbia made almost completely electronic recordings of Wassoulou with highly arranged Parisian dancehall sounds. Sali Sidibe went a more traditional route by including a four-string bolon bass harp and a single-string horsehair fiddle. But Sangare created a sound that fell somewhere in between that of her two rivals.
    Her kamalengoni-led ensemble also featured the djembe drum, violin and electric guitar, all of which laid a richly complex foundation for the expressive range of her voice. The roots of Wassoulou are in the forefront of her music; powerful and furious rhythms, rich vocal harmonies and Sangare's lead voice, elegantly shifting the mood and musical structure with confidence and control. Her music also revealed Sangare as a woman of strength and integrity whose songs spoke frankly about the oppression of women and the hope for a new society that treasures its heritage and is open to equality and change. "At my concerts at the Palais de la Culture, the men used to wait in their cars. Their wives went into the concert and the men stayed outside," Sangare told British writer and African music ethnographer Lucy Duran. "But a few men came inside and now more come."
    Her first recording, Moussoulou (Women) was recorded in 1989 when Sangare was 21 years old. The controversial record sold over 200,000 copies and though the albums hit single, "Diarby Nene," detailed the sensual passions of love and lust, other songs and later releases (such as Ko Sira), denounce polygamy and advocate freedom from arranged marriages widely practiced in her country. "Lots of young women understood and really agreed with me," she added. "They had all that in their heads and were refusing forced marriages. Now they had someone who could help them to cry out what they felt."
    Sangare's current release, Worotan, is enriched by the addition of acoustic "Spanish-style" guitar, a traditional flute and a brass section on select songs. Her voice soars freely with a bird-like elegance above the musical mix and her words are delivered with pure determination and inspiration. It is clear that many of Sangare's songs still speak about the social injustices endured by women. In fact, the title track translates to "ten kola nuts," the price for a bride of an arranged marriage. But it's that conviction and the sheer force of her voice that allows Oumou Sangare to rouse the free spirit in us all.