Habib Koité
We’ve been listening to a lot of music from Africa recently; especially from Mali. One of our favorites is Habib Koité. We got a chance to hear him live last night at the Somerville Theater.
They put on a great show. They use a mix of western instruments and African instruments like the balafon and the n’goni. Koité plays guitar, but using an interesting, pentatonic tuning that goes well with the other instruments. The result is a distinctive sound that really rocks. They played some of their quieter songs, but for most of the night they were really bouncing. One of the drummers was having a great time dragging girls out of the audience to dance with them on stage.
Here’s an example of what they sound like on a couple of our favorite songs:
Before the concert we had dinner at the Tibetan restaurant Martsa on Elm. We had a yummy dulum gyabra followed by amdo-tse and this neat looking capsicum chicken.
Afterwards, we went to a creperie to have a banana and honey crepe for dessert.
Here’s a blog post by someone else who was at the show. They do a much better job of reviewing it than I did. Better pictures too!