WOMAD

Suuf

From Senegal

Biography by Andy Morgan, July 2003:Suuf Guesting on BBC Radio 3’s live broadcast from the Village Stage, from 11.00pm–midnight on SundayIn this shrunken networked world, fusion between genres, styles and cultures of music has become the norm rather than the exception. The question is how and in what spirit do different musical genres, styles and cultures best fuse together? Well, take the case of Bristol-based music producer Simon Sleath. He went to Senegal to study French in his early twenties and found that the local music possessed those ‘weird and quirky qualities’ that he so admired in some music back home, with challenging lyrics and song structures that gave him a lift. Some years later he decided to go back to Senegal and set up, in his words, “a blind date between European classical music and traditional Pulaar music”, one of the main strands in Senegal’s rich musical weave. He stumbled across the Guissé Brothers, a trio of talented musicians who, like Pape & Cheikh, were torch–bearers in the new Senegalese ‘folk’ tendency. Over two trips, Sleath and Djiby Guissé produced a collection of elegantly executed songs, and drew upon a host of exceptionally talented musicians to perform them, including Dembel Diop, bassist and musical director of the legendary Super Diamono de Dakar, Sarah Class, a jazz and classical pianist of great invention and class, guitarist Justin Adams and vocalist Biram Seck. The result was ‘Debbo Hande’ (‘Modern Women’), a CD of warm, elegant and beautiful songs that was released at the end of last year by the BBC’s new Late Junction imprint. Suuf have just embarked on their first ever UK tour and will be performing at WOMAD in the mellow Sunday afternoon acoustic configuration of vocals, guitars, piano and Pulaar hoddu, a traditional lute. Why does this fusion work? Because both sides wanted it, worked on it, believed in it and went deep into the subject matter before recording the tracks. It’s a model that many other groups could do well to study and follow.