Farafina: Farafina - Kanou

Powerful rhythms and exotic melodies performed on balafon, flute and kora - this is the recipe for the music of Farafina, a music that fascinates an audience around the globe. When it comes to recording new songs, it seems that almost all Stars from the African music scene do only trust Western studios with their sophisticated technique. Farafina has chosen another way. Their producers brought all the equipment to Bobo-Dioulasso, capturing a fresh recording that breathes and lives. A breeze of warm air and the smell of tea and traditional rice dishes was more typical to the recordings than the clean atmosphere of laboratory. The most outstanding feat of Farafina is certainly their ability to expand their music without denying their traditional instruments. So, while integrating orchestral forms and new melodies, the balafons, koras, flute, djembes, tama, and baras are still there. Of course new timbres have been brought by guitar and keyboard, and not in the last by the griotte Fatoumata Dembele, a female voice adding a fresh colour to this up till now male only ensemble.