The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #155178   Message #3648368
Posted By: Vic Smith
04-Aug-14 - 06:24 PM
Thread Name: Spontaneous folk composition
Subject: RE: Spontaneous folk composition
Dick,
You have lighted on a very fine singer in the example you link to above - Sory Kandia Kouyaté is on good form in that recording,
Sadly, however, you have not chosen well because the song that he sings Kedo is a Jaliya and tells the story of a war between the Mandings and the Fulas at the time when the Fulas were the ethnic group that were trying to introduce Islam into West Africa. In singing this item the story is settled rather like a ballad would be over here. Of course, again like ballads, some versions are longer than others. (Some have the Fulas using monkeys as spies listening to the conversations and plans of the Manding warriors!)

If you wanted to illustrate Sory Kandia Kouyaté singing a praise song where the singer uses the spontaneous folk composition that is the title of this thread, you would have done much better to have chosen Kémé Bouréma

Kedo has become enormously popular with Manding jalis of the current generation, but it was not always so. For example, it is a great favourite of Jali Sherrifo Konteh who learned it from his father Alhaji Bai Konte. However, Sherrifo told me that Bai said that he told his sons that they should not perform it in public for fear of offending and Fulas that were in his audience.