This document provides an overview of traditional music in Mali, focusing on jeli musicians. Some key points: - Jeli are hereditary musician castes who orally pass down music from generation to generation, playing instruments like the kora and balafon. - As craft specialists, jeli served nobles by composing praise songs that emphasized a person's ancestry and exploits. This reinforced social hierarchies. - Though some jeli remain traditional, others incorporate modern influences like guitar. Successful jeli tour and record albums while still playing at life-cycle events. - Jeli music utilizes complex singing styles, repetitive percussion, and kora improvisation. Songs take the form of poetic

1. Traditional Music
Mali: music, power, and hybridity
“Traditional music”
● “Traditional music”: music
passed on orally from
generation to generation,
rather than through the
mass media.
● Jeli: traditional, hereditary
musicians of Mali.
Mamadou Diabate, shown here playing the
kora, is a jeli. He won a Grammy in 2008 for
Best Traditional Music Album.
Jeliya: a West African tradition
● Jeli = term for a musician (word varies with local
languages)
● French called them griots (origin of term unknown)
● Jeliya = “what jeli do,” i.e., music, singing, oral history,
etc.

2. The balafon: another jeli instrument
● Xylophones—wooden-
keyed instruments played
with beaters—are found in
many parts of Africa and
are the ancestors of the
American marimba
Jeli and caste
! The jeli profession dates back to Sunjata Keita, founder
of the 13th-century Mandinka empire, which ruled much
of West Africa
! This centralized, hierarchical empire had multiple castes
—social divisions with separate religious rights: slaves,
nobles, and in between them the freeborn craft specialists
! Remnants of these divisions remain today among
Mande-speaking people around West Africa: in Mali,
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Gambia and the Ivory
Coast
! Jeli were variously classed as slaves or as craft specialists,
and were attached to kings and other nobles
Jeliya: function
● As craft specialists, the jeli’s job was

3. ● Praise-singing
● Genealogy
● Oral history
● Note: these three things are linked: a person’s status is
praised by
singing of the exploits of his or her ancestors in history
● (Praise can be ironic, too.)
Modern jeliya
● In 20th century, under French colonialism, jeli were
attached to chiefs (demoted kings)
● Today, in independent, democratic Mali, jeli still exist
● Some successful jeli are patronized by powerful
politicians or wealthy people
● they sing praises at weddings, baptisms, and circumcisions,
and some are now accompanied by guitar
● Successful jeli also make a living by touring and putting
out albums.
● Some stay traditional, others move to the popular music
arena, and some do both.
Jeliya: music
● Singing is highly assertive and melismatic (i.e., the
singer sings multiple notes on syllable).
● Repeated percussion pattern—on 4, 2, and 4 (if you count it

4. in 4). A third person (not the singer or kora player) is tapping
this rhythm on the side of the kora resonator with a stick.
● Improvised passages on kora—generally descending motion
when there is no singing
Jeliya: singing and texts
● Texts are highly poetic and allusive: an improvisational
mix of “proverbs, philosophical commentary, and formal
and spontaneous praise for various individuals present at a
performance.”
● Rather like a freelancing rapper, the jeli puts together
snatches of memorized rhymes with new rhymes thought up
to fit the occasion.
● On following slide, text of a performance by Anchou
Thiam of Senegal. It “concentrates on the bravery of a
noble warrior of the past, who happens to be an ancestor
of . . . [a] well-known Senegalese lawyer and politician.”
● Every line names an ancestor of the person he is praising:
JaajirAi wa Dembaane.
Maa Joop Gandiool.
RanaanJoopMaar Sere.
Njante Joop Maar Sere.
Mbaas Joop Maar Sere.
Maa Joop Gandioo.
Muse Saar Fari Joop, the

5. hero.
Muse Saar Fari Joop, the
warrior.
Muse Fari Joop, the
courageous
MuseF ari Joop did not
betray the Brak( king)...
Another example…
● And on the next slide, a praise song for Leopold
Senghor, Senegal’s first post-independence leader.
● This praise song is less based on ancestry and more
concerned with praising the recent exploits of the
person being praised.
You all know of the year
1960,
It is in 1960 that
Senghor became our
leader.
All nations respect us,
Everybody respects
Leopold ...
Senghor is our leader ...
Remember the time of
the rice shortage
And the increase in the
price of ground-nuts!
You know that at that
time Senghor was still a

6. student abroad.
He obtained degrees
and diplomas and the
'baccalaureat'.
These were not enough ...
You made the demands
And the country got its
independence.
Through your intelligence the
deltas were developed,
in addition to other projects
that you had initiated.
You said to the nation
'Work!' ...
Yaay Ngilaan Baxum Jaay
(your son)
Leads the nation admirably.
You wanted independence,
Senghor, you were our
ambassador
To Canada; you passed
through the United States.
When we were behind, and
when we were on the brink
of disaster,
It was you who took the
initiative.
You appealed to the people
to have patience and to
pray.
The course of destiny
cannot be stopped ...
Each region received its fair
share.

7. You brought back peace
and harmony.
Oh! Leopold, oh!
Independence is pleasant!
You are not a man of war.
Not a shot fired, not a
sword drawn.
Jeliya and power
● Throughout its history, jeliya has helped to define,
construct, and sometimes to critique political power.
● Ancient jeli were a craftsman or slave cast who served
nobles
● Colonial jeli were attached to chiefs
● Modern jeli perform for powerful people or for the market
● The very structure of jeliya music is designed to focus
attention on the words, which empower the praised
person through history and genealogy.
Popular music, hybridity, and power
● West African governments in the 1960s and 1970s did
something similar with popular music, forming bands
to serve the nation and even specific leaders.
● Like the countries it served, which sought to localize
foreign political concepts like socialism, the music of
these bands was a hybrid of foreign and traditional
forms.

8. ● This mix of the familiar and the new has helped
Malian popular music succeed internationally.