I Play Wassoulou, Jeli, Songhay and Tuareg Music: Adama Drame in Postcolonial Mali, Bimusical or Multimusical?

Abstract

Adama is an accomplished guitarist in diverse Malian styles. The Malian guitarist is able to analyse the forms and contexts of the national musical styles he performs in regards to: the musical interaction with other musicians, timbre, rhythm and melody. In this article, I examine how Adama performs a wide range of Malian musical styles in Bamako; and how he represents and participates in different postcolonial musical cultures in Mali. In this article, Adama’s capability of understanding different national musical styles as part of the social contexts in a variety of musical cultures in Mali is defined as multimusical. Multimusicality debates the concept of bimusicality (Hood 1960) defined as the capacity of performing both, a western and non-western musical style; therefore separating musically the Self [western music] and the Other [non-western]. For Adama, the concept of multimusicality does not only extend the possibility of learning more than two musical styles, but examines the national styles he is able to play as a Malian citizen (insider) and not as the Other. This paper is based on my musical contact with Adama Drame during November-December 2006 in Mali and in the last eight years.