DUSU Mali Band - Doni Doni Che Bi Jdimi (2011)

Since much of the US is at the mercy of an oppressive heat wave, I thought I'd post some hot weather music to help y'all keep your swagger in spite of those sweaty rivers pouring from your pits.

Sometimes, hot weather music needs to be from a place that's hot. Even better if it's in a foreign language, so your brain can disassociate and focus on finding that frosty booze beverage ASAP. Here we have a group that kills those two birds. The DUSU Mali Band are Portland-based, but their lead singer, Ibrahim Kelly, is from Mali and sings in an African language I'm too ignorant to identify (one of the most common of Mali is Bambara but he is of Dogon descent which has several of it's own dialects). An immediate point of comparison for those unfamiliar with music of this region might be Nigerian-born saxophonist Fela Kuti who incorporated similar jazz flavors into his brand of West African funk. While saxophones make appearances in some DUSU Mali Band songs as well, the music here is much more guitar driven. This is most likely due to the fact that Ibrahim Kelly is the nephew of an internationally renowned Mali guitarist Ali Farka Touré ... perhaps playing a mean guitar simply runs in the family.


The tunes here are mostly upbeat, lively, and repetitive enough that you can easily get lost in the music while you find yourself that margarita.


10 songs. 


DUSU Mali Band - Doni Doni Che Bi Jdimi