Mamani Keita, who used to be a back-up singer for another Keita outcast (Salif), is set to become on of the main ambassadors of modern African music. Gagner l'Argent Fran�ais (To earn French money in English), her third album, verging on rock, is her most electric to date. The one where she is the most daring. It highlights a strong, passionate, and independent personality as well as a rebellious voice in which her mandinke heritage is unleashed by the inventive and eclectic sonic environment created by Nicolas Repac, the guitarist and arranger famous for his work with long time collaborator Arthur H.
Mamani crafted the songs for Gagner l'Argent Fran�ais, to which the guitarist Djeli Moussa Kouyat� brought the finishing touches. The tracks were then subjected to the intricate sonic editing of Nicolas Repac's poetic imagination. Some of them rely on a rock foundation (Sinikan, Gagner l'Argent Fran�ais) with a tapestry of guitars and a binary rhythm. Others transport us into dub's hypnotic round (Massigui) or the hard-hitting paraphrase of afro beat (Konia). The traditional mandinke instruments, -ngoni, kora, monocorde-, are meshed with globalized samples, klezmer clarinette, Chinese lute, classical strings. In the end, it could sound like one of those exotic gardens where the magnolias cast a shadow over the ferns, where the cactus pisses off the rhododendron, where confusion is king. But there is nothing but harmony, respect and adventure with a horizon that keeps moving as the songs progress, suspension bridges that bring us from one world to the next without even a hint of turbulence, from the savannah to a marvellous used sound store, from a village chant to an old 1930's tune. It is within this surprising, audacious, unorthodox yet coherent environment that Mamani Keita proudly and fiercely asserts an independence that she dearly earned. May she speak of her life, her mistakes, her successes, may she spread wisdom like the elders and romance like the young girl fetching water from the well.
