Being

After 2016's The Traveller, Baaba Maal wasn’t sure if he would ever make another solo album. He concentrated on his humanitarian work, was heard in the 2018 blockbuster movie Black Panther and as the voice of Wakanda in its 2022 sequel Wakanda Forever. Happily, he was eventually drawn back to music to make Being, only his third album in the last 22 years. Beginning as a series of improvised jams, loops and beats recorded in London, Dakar and New York, the tapes were then layered and layered again by Baaba and producer Johan Hugo (The Very Best, Santigold) to create the seven rhythm-heavy songs we have here.

As on The Traveller, traditional African instruments are fused with state-of-the-art electronics. On ‘Yerimayo Celebration’, ‘Boboyillo’ and ‘Freak Out’ featuring The Very Best's singer Esau Mwamwaya, mystical chants swirl beguilingly in a sea of clattering, digital noise. ‘Agreement’ slows down the tempo with long-time collaborator Cheikh Ndoye's bass ngoni to the fore, while the Mauritanian rapper General Paco Lenol lends his voice to the monumental beats of ‘Mbeda Wella’. The album ends with the ecstatic nine-minute trance of ‘Casamance Nights’ on which Baaba's soaring voice has never sounded more soulful. A fabulous return by one of Africa's greatest living voices.