Mamani Keita - Yelema

Like some Dream from Africa, Yelema is a journey that wanders where the mood takes it, travelling a kind of enchanted universe where the whole world, from the blues of the Delta to the arabesques of the oriental traditions, might have been invited to come and renew its strengths at the springs and wells represented by the purest, most authentic music of Mali.

At once both playful and poetic, and transcended by the inimitable voice of Mamani Keita, this little gem of intelligence and music propels the music of Mali into the 21st century.

Yelema has the audacity to telescope all kinds of styles, all kinds of cultural hybridization, without ever ceasing, not even for the slightest instant, to humbly belong to the thousand-year-old gestures of the most authentic African music.