Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
In April when I was shopping with my wife at CB2, a furniture store in Manhattan, I started a conversation with the CB2 doorman who was from Burkina Faso and has been living in New York for a while. He came to the States for only one simple reason: to make some money here. When we talked about music, I asked him, whether he knows the NY/Burkina Faso band BURKINA ELECTRIC which he didn’t know. Then we talked about his country and it’s name. He told me that it got its deep name from Thomas Sankara in 1984 who was the president of that time. Burkina Faso stands for “the land of upright people” made out by the two major native languages Mòoré and Dioula, Figuratively, Burkina could be translated to “men of integrity” from the Mòoré language, and Faso means “fatherland” in Dioula. This doorman was surprised that I didn’t know anything about his hero and inspiration Thomas Sankara. I promised him that I would do some research and write about him in DooBeeDoo.
Before I say anything about Sankara I would like to say, how I think about the continent Africa and the African countries. First of all I love Africa, its people and of course its music. I have played with a lot of African musicians from Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, South Africa, Morocco, etc… As you know I love Salif Keita from Mali whom I owe a lot as a musician. Playing with my African music colleagues taught me that there’s no way from my side to superimpose my way of thinking on them. But, if I’m their leader and they respect and trust me, they would listen to me. Good examples of respected leaders in the African music world are musicians such as Salif Keita, Yousou N’Dour, Doudou N’Diaye Rose, Fela Kuti, Baaba Maal, etc.They don’t play only music but represent their people and get involved with them as well. You could call them music activists. When they make money, part of it goes to their community or village. Some of them get involved into politics and try to become a senator or even the president of their country. Fela Kuti and Yousou N’Dour are very good examples.
