Grammy award-winning singer Oumou Sangaré has been putting her stamp on Malian music for almost the last three decades. Eight years after her last release, Sangaré made her return earlier this year with “Yere Faga”—the first single from her forthcoming album Mogoya (which translates to “people today”). “Yere Faga” is a funky track with a strong bassline featuring instrumentation from legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen.
Ahead of her album’s May 19 release, Sangaré shares another infectious single with a deep groove. Her latest single “Kamelemba,” shines a bright light on what Mali has to offer musically. The rhythm continues to build upon itself right until the very last second.
The gradual build up of the instrumentation has the ability to discreetly work its way through the system of each listener until they feel completely engulfed by the upbeat rhythm. The working of this production almost mirrors the subject of the song as Sangaré sings to women about the dangers of falling in love with sweet talkers and liars.
“It’s about men who show off, who bring women down, about women who fall badly in love,” Sangaré explains. “I wrote that song to give advice to our sisters to be careful, because there are loads of kamelemba out there.” However, the song is meant to be humorous not malicious. ‘We do a lot of teasing in African music. We tease each other, but it isn’t malicious. These are messages we need to get across, but they’re not really mean. I accuse men, but some say, ‘Women are like that too!’”
Listen to “Kamelemba” below.
