MANUSH MUSIC & ART
Moussa Niang
Moussa was inspired by West African music to write a hymn about the poet, the griot Doua jointly with Désiré Somé, the song "Xale", expresses their conviction that every child in the world deserves an outstretched hand and forcefully affirms that "he who opens a school closes a prison."
Senegalese singer Moussa Niang (nicknamed Moussa Diabate) has worked with the biggest names in Malian music. He was one of the lead singers with Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra and has shared the stage with Bassekou Kouyate. Multi-instrumentalist Désiré Somé, from Burkina Faso, fine-tuned his education as a jazz guitar player at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. He has played bass and guitar with several groups.
Moussa performed with Toumani Diabaté’s Bamako dance band, the Symmetric Orchestra, in the late ‘90s and ‘00s; he is the lead singer on the track “Tapha Niang” from the album Boulevard de l’Indépendence (2006).
In the song, “Tapha Niang”Moussa Diabate, adapts a traditional Malian song about the death of a much-loved hippopotamus who has been shot by a white hunter.In the original song (Mali Sadjo) the griots of the village sing about how difficult it is to be separated from your loved one in death. The singer adapts this song in "Tapha Niang" to lament the death of his brother Mustapha, who died very young as a child. Moussa draws on the excerpts from the Koran to console him & help him overcome his bereavement.
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Discography
