African American Music, History of

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When I saw this book, I was afraid, and I still have fear about my opinion on this issue. The issue is complex and difficult and can not be solved overnight. I am an African. I have to do things the way in Africa. I can not write, Afro-American a Western scientist. In my culture we have in the past and the future into the present. When I hear music African American, I feel the past, present and future at the same time. Well, the best way for meGrip on this issue is to work through questions and answers.

[Question] Yaya! Who do you think you are?

Yaya Diallo - I do not believe it! Are Farafina, which means that I am a man, dark skin. The word Africa is the Arabic name for our continent. In Bambara, which we call the "Africa" Farafina. Farafina, the land of dark-skinned people. I am from Farafina and are proud of it. I do not want to be somebody else. People usually say African American. I would say that Farafina American, which meansdark-skinned man lives in America.

[Question] What is your African background?

Yaya Diallo - I come from afar. I was born in 1946 (in Fienso French Sudan), Mali. My parents were nomads. When I was very young, I travel a lot. I grew up in the bush away from Western civilization. The music I heard was very traditional and play live. I did not have a radio or TV. I had the opportunity to listen to the music of various ethnic groups ofIvory Coast, Ghana and Burkina Faso. In some villages, I heard the songs from Muslim mosques. During the night I'd like the frog symphony orchestras. From 1946 to 1960 I lived in the countryside. My musical training is a long history, but you can learn more from my book The Healing Drum.

[Question] What are your feelings of the civilized world?

Yaya Diallo - In town I had strange sensations. I saw how people listen to music through what I thought was of two types of boxes.The first was a radio. It could change the singer with the key tuning, I thought. Records as required. It read 78, 45 and 33 1 / 2. Had to adjust everything with something, but I have no idea what they have. Even today, the only music I heard was the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Johnny Holliday.

[Question] What do you think of the term African American?

Yaya Diallo - the dark-skinned people who live in America are no different from people I met in Africa (Farafina). Tome, are simply different ethnic groups, like the Yoruba, Zulu or Bantou the Touareg. Africa is not a culture. We have thousands and thousands of different languages and music. My wife is an African American from Louisville, KY. His mother is from Dark Corner, MS, and his father from Jackson, TN. As my wife and my family there was an African American man, James Brown, who saved my life with his music.

[Question] How to save another man African American life of a traditionalAfricans?

Yaya Diallo - In 1967 I left my country in Montreal, Canada. On my way to Paris, I saw a big picture of James Brown at the Olympia Theater. In my head I thought, "Oh, a black man at the Olympia in Paris, France." In Montreal, I danced on the search of a place or listen to the music I loved. One day I found a radio station that played black music. I heard James Brown and felt at home.

[Question] What do you think of Afro-American?

Yaya Diallo - Ialways say that I do not think I feel. When it comes to music, talking of African American spirituals, blues, funk, jazz, gospel, rap, dance music, etc. I would like to speak to each one after the other.

When people in Canada danced the twist, snap and go-go, in my country French, a man named Johnny Holliday play bad versions of Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles' music in French. In America, I found this French man was a robber. He stole the music, sung in French and seemed aGenius for us Africans.

[Question] What did you feel when you started dancing?

Yaya Diallo - I went to Wilson Pickett, James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone's dance music. For me these were African. They had fought well, feeling good, and especially the African spirit. I have the feeling that the Chinese and European music. In '70, I discovered the music Funk, The O'Jays, Parliament, Ohio Players, Kool and the Gang and JR Walker and The All Stars. I feltAt home, where I knew that the family of Motown (Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations and Stevie Wonder). I survived because I had this kind of music.

[Question] Regarding the music, is what the connection between Africa and African-Americans?

Yaya Diallo - African-Americans are Africans from the village and, unfortunately, just do not know! When you hear the music you can find. Kool & The Gang Funky Stuff played. When you hear the drum partDounouba receive part of the dance Sounou. Sounou was the 15th Century, and is still played today, the dance of young love. In Africa, we learn to know the past in the present and teach the next generation. African Americans sometimes do not know how they are in Africa.

[Question] Why you can say that they are in Africa?

Yaya Diallo - The first time I heard the Four Tops, I thought I was listening to farmers Bambara in the evening after a hard day's work. The Temptationsreminded me of the Men's Fire dancers and singers. Temptations I can hear, but I'm afraid to see them. I started dancing at the fire and the music brings memories of the ceremony secret, what happened in the village well. Aretha Franklin is my great Djeli-Moussa from the empire of Mali in the 13th Century. If I am Afro-American, I do not care about the meaning, you only hear what I hear.

[Question] What do you think of jazz?

Yaya Diallo --In fact, telling the truth, I feel like jazz. Many people from Africa feel the same way. I learned about jazz in 1980 when I recorded my first album, Nangape Records Onzou. Which opened the door with jazz. Jazz magazines as Downbeat, Cadence, and has written articles about me, as I was a man "jazz." I was invited to do workshops at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY. I met the big names in jazz like Art Blakey. He said: "Yaya is the only African jazz that I, I can play withand feel good. "I completed a trio with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell in the Symphony Space in New York.

[Question] What is gospel?

Yaya Diallo - For me, religion or the Church of the Gospel, but my father-in-law changed my mind. If going to church with him, I saw a big orchestra and a choir large. People sang and I forgot that I was in church. I was surprised, I saw women in a state of trance, screaming like in my village, but they called him, too. It reminded me of the Secret Society Mania, whereonly woman to go into a trance when praise to God (cf. the drum of healing).

[Question] What is rap?

Yaya Diallo - I love rap! I use to rap to buy lie and say it was for my children. Rap is the ancient tradition of the Fulani people of Mali. Tells the stories of the life of poetry, which has taken notice. Nomadic people to declare their daily journey through the same form in a hurry, but without the bad language. Today, young people think they have reinvented thewheel.

[Question] Yaya, what about African-American music is going on?

Yaya Diallo - Today, everything is simple. Instead of buying a drum kit to buy a drum machine. All the computer. You can get almost any sound made by pressing a button. This is the kind of world we live in today. The young Africans love, as we Used To Love James Brown. And 'the only thing that has changed!

[Question] How are Afro-American to change U.S.Society?

Yaya Diallo - we changed everything! We changed the style of dance, we have new sounds, new styles and new ways of dressing ... EVERYTHING! Country music is the white version of the blues. Rock-n-roll comes from our music. People forget that Jimmie Hendricks, a player of blues, which was only changed his song and see. Without James Brown, Sly Stone and family, and the Motown family, there would be Madonna, Dion Celien no, no techno, and no disk. Afro-Americans have brought thisthe world. It 'sad, why not identify the man. We have changed the world and it will never be the same.

[Question] How do people know that you are in America?

Yaya Diallo - I am the author of two books, The Healing Drum, and on the threshold of the soul of Africa. I have four CDs, Nanagape, The Healing Drum, tales and Dombai Dounoukan. Thank Onzou Records, the first companies to make familiar to me, my first album in 1980. It was not easy!