PODOR, Senegal - Amid a changing, modernizing world with climate change threatening his home, Senegalese singer-songwriter Baaba Maal is releasing his first album in seven years, “Being.”
The genre-crossing album, released by Marathon Artists, is explores those themes and showcases traditional African instruments along with futuristic electronic sounds.
The first single from the record, “Yerimayo Celebration,” is a jubilant, rabble-rousing celebration of Maal’s roots in the small town of Podor in north Senegal, and the fishing community at its heart.
Maal was born into a fisherman class and was expected to follow that career path, but he befriended Mansour Seck, a griot — or traveling storyteller and musician — and was welcomed into his family.
“I never thought I would stay in one place and doing one thing every day in my life. This is why music is a really good opportunity for me to go away, first, like a young person, like going on an adventure,” he said according to AP.
“And it’s a way to liberate me and the people of my generation of this caste system where you have to stay in this place, do the same thing like your father or grandfather.”
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