Today's music was inspired by what I heard on the radio and what I read in today's paper. It is an odd sort of inspiration, driven by Crispian St. Peter's obituary.

From the article about Salif Keita: "As anyone who has seen him knows, Keita, the great singer from Mali and a crucial figure in modern African music, is an albino. The condition, which manifests through depigmentation of the skin and eyes, can result in extreme photosensitivity, vision problems, and a heightened risk of skin cancer.

But albinos face human dangers as well: isolation, scorn, and worse. Keita knows: In his youth, it was prejudice that pushed him toward music to express himself and find a vocation, when his aristocratic lineage (his family is said to descend from medieval emperor Sundiata) ought to have precluded crossing caste lines.

In Keita’s case, the happy outcome was a distinguished career, first in the classic Malian bands of the 1970s, the Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, and under his own name since the 1980s. His latest album, “La Différence,’’ features top-notch Malian musicians as well as guitarist Bill Frisell, trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, and a Lebanese string section. It brings Keita to the Somerville Theatre on Thursday."

This entry was posted on June 13, 2010 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: African music, Salif Keita