Dama Bëgga Ñibi (I Want to Go Home)

In the spring of 2020, Bakane Seck, the Senegalese percussionist and founder of Dakar’s Jeri Jeri Band, found himself stranded by lockdown in Berlin, where he met the New Zealand-born electronic producer Aron Ottignon. In uncertain times, Ottignon’s studio became a meeting place for the city’s West African diaspora and this album began to take shape, starting with the title-track on which Pape Diouf sings the refrain ‘I want to go home’ over a thrilling fusion of mbalax rhythms and Ottignon’s jazzy, electronically-treated piano stabs. The mix of Senegalese tradition and electronica is reminiscent of the kind of experimental groove alchemy heard on Baaba Maal’s 2023 album Being and the great man himself turns up on the track ‘Teddoungal’, singing in a high, soulful wail over clattering tribal percussion and blissful synth patterns from Ottignon. Once lockdown was over, the album grew in other directions – ‘Kaolack’, for instance, was recorded on a journey to Bakane’s home town where his family joined in an impromptu jam with steel drums before Ottignon added layers of swirling electronic mystery back in Berlin. Other guest vocalists include the young female Gambian singer Toufa Mbaye, Aka Boy on the hypnotic ‘Galdoorée’ and the brilliant Sidy Diop on the dub-heavy ‘Maam Baay’.