Representing Bamako
1. Need One, “Bolibana” [video]
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As the rap unfolds, images and lyrics cut to and comment on neighborhood sites and scenes. As we watch, Issa and Lassy draw my attention to the venues, describing them like local tour guides. There’s the Platinum Club, a nightclub formerly located above the Babemba cinema; Rokia’s grilled chicken stall and the Niamey pastry shop, good places to eat and meet up with friends; the cinema, where you can catch all the latest releases from Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood; a young couple walking and whispering under streetlights and neighborhood children outside their homes, chanting “Bolibana!” (pg. 23) |
2. Scene from the film Bamako [video]
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In a continental city subjected to the (neo)colonialism of “civilizing missions” and “structural adjustments,” from the imperial past to the neoliberal present, [Abderrahmane Sissako's] Bamako bears witness to the persistence of local entrepreneurship, communal solidarity, and grassroots politics. Yet, the film also confronts its audience with the indignity and misery of privatized redundancies, clandestine migration, preventable illness, and premature death. (pg. 29) |
3. Harlem City soundscape [audio - field recording]
Harlem City is the name of a bar and eatery run by Ablo Keita, one of the residents of Keitala who has worked at the bar that adjoins his home since he was a young man… For Ablo, the “Harlem” reference signifies a specific kind of Afropolitanism. “Modibo (a.k.a. ‘Franky’) Keita gave it that name in the 1980s,” he explains. “It represents négritude. It symbolizes respect for the black race and African authenticity… It’s a sign of the bar’s African-ness.” At Harlem City, the diasporic signifier thickens in a tavern soundscape that includes the latest in Malian popular music, as well as Afropop classics (from the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s) and African American soul (especially James Brown). (pgs. 33-34)
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4. Need One (featuring Tata Pound and Amen Fils), “Sabali" [video]
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As freshman exponents of a global musical genre (hip-hop) that has, since the early 1990s, been considered a source of youthful misconduct and cultural degradation... Need One stylistically represents an image of urban youth culture that defies delinquency and actively seeks to reorient itself toward the moral structures of traditional society. (pg. 44) |