HT Interview: Craig Myers – The Roots of Barika

SB: What’s your history with the N’Goni? How did you come across the instrument and how long have you been playing?

CM: I’ve been playing for about four years now. Like I said, I’ve been studying West African music since 1997. I got really into West African drumming music, and I went to California. I lived in Santa Cruz for a little while, I was studying with teachers there. Just going up the coast and studying with teachers in Portland, Oregon and in the Bay Area. And then I ended up going back to Vermont, which is where I’m from, and studying with teachers there and joining a group called Jeh Kulu drum and dance theatre. And then through them I went to Africa for the first time, which I guess was 2000. I was there for about three months studying percussion. I came back the next year once again and this time I went to Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali. Mali is where the N’Goni music comes from. So I started hearing this music around and was totally captivated by it. I said “oh my god, what is this music?”

Some of the first N’Goni music I heard was Donso N’Goni music which is hunter’s music as donso means hunter. That’s the original N’Goni. The N’Goni I play is the Kamel N’Goni and that’s for the youth, the young people’s harp. The young people, they really like the traditional hunter’s music but they couldn’t change it because it’s very much a tradition that’s passed down father to son. It’s very specific, you can’t put crazy techno beats in it and manipulate it to your liking.

They made the Kamel N’Goni which is similar, but it’s smaller in construction and it has more strings. The tuning is very similar. Now they use it in pop music and they use in all which ways. It was made in the 1950’s/1960’s so people could just kind of embellish and improvise and add to something they already enjoy.

I found it on that second trip. It was a cab driver who I asked to bring me to the market to buy some N’Goni music. He told me, “I’ll bring you to the market and I’ll show you my favorite player.” He gave me some recordings, one specifically of this guy named Samou Diakite. Samou Diakite is this awesome N’Goni player from this village called Kolflore and I was totally obsessed with this tape. When I came home all I did for the first few months I was home was listen to this tape over and over again. The weird thing is in all this obsession I didn’t get a N’Goni when I was there.

A few months later I got this email from a friend who told me he was coming back from Mali and was bringing back all these N’Gonis and wanted to know if anyone wanted to buy one. And boom, of course I was on it right away, I replied and ended up getting my first N’Goni.

From there, I was playing along with tapes and learning how to tune it and just getting into it. It just became a spiraling obsession. I just really was taken by it. I learned how to make them in 2006 or 2007. On the third trip to Africa I went specifically to Mali just to study N’Goni with my teacher Adama Coulibally. I also went to the village of Kolflore, where this tape was from, in hopes of studying with Samou Diakite. Unfortunately he was out of the village for a wedding or some ceremony but he son was there, Jiggy Diakite, and I ended up studying traditional hunter’s music in the village where he was from with his son. This whole experience just kind of blew me away. Ever since I’ve stuck with it.

I love it so much and I started doing my own thing with it. And remember it’s a lot about the idea of tradition and moving forward. It’s about always remembering where we came from and always giving respect to my elders and tradition but not being afraid to embellish upon that and do something new, innovative. That’s kind of what Barika is all about.

SB: I was going to say, that seems to be what you’ve accomplished with Barika. Have you played any of your music for your N’Goni teachers in Mali?

CM: I haven’t played it for my teachers in Mali, no, but I’ve played it in for a lot my African friends from the African community in Burlington, for sure. The word Barika is Arabic but in West Africa they use Barika as a word for praise giving and thanksgiving. It’s paying a higher respect to the community and the grace of people.

They have people over there called griots which are the history keepers through oral songs and tradition. They’ll be singing these songs about people saying “Barika Mohammed, because of all the great things you’ve done and your family is amazing and you’ve always been generous to the people” and proceed to go through all the great things that these people have done. That’s what Barika means, it praise giving, it’s thanksgiving, it’s giving respect. That’s also part of Barika’s vision as a band is to incorporate and acknowledge all the great musicians and artists and people that we have in our lives into our music, so we’re always happy to have guest artists come and sit in with us. A lot of them are my friends from the African community.

SB: Do you expect to branch out beyond Vermont in 2012?

CM: Yes, within the next year definitely. As I said it’s really hard because all the projects try to stay really busy, and I’m dedicated to all three. Rubblebucket has been making big strides nationally in the past year, we’ve done a number of national tours. I definitely plan on branching out and getting out of Vermont in the next year. We probably won’t go too far beyond the Greater New England area, but that’s the goal for 2012, branching out, a slow solid build.

PAGE THREE = Lessons From Rubblebucket & Mike Gordon