Spot On Mali Music is much more than a festival. It is a community stretching from Mali to a number of countries, where a string of conservatories and music schools form a network, where musicians - professional and students - interact and creates fusions and hybrids of any kind.
At CAMM the Malian music conservatory live wires like head of the music department, Souleymane Dembele, tirelessly travels the globe taking young artists of tomorrow with him. At I.N.A. the famous music school in downtown Bamako, teachers like Karim Bengaly and Kempes Sacko create stars of tomorrow from the massive raw talent, which continues to emerge in Mali. And in Denmark their counterparts are people like vice director of RAMA, Keld Hosbond, himself an active musician, as well as among others Martin Granum and Camilla Dayyani - not to mention Moussa Diallo, bass player of international renown and from a famous peul family in Koulikoro, but since many years based in Denmark.
In the Spot On Mali Music Festival itself, we are greatly indebted to local friends like the amazing Barou Diallo, Aly ‘Castro’ Traore, Mory Toure and others. They are the spine of our festival. Which include great living inspirations like Cheick Tidiane Seck, the master of manding jazz fusion who have been part of our festival as mentor and active teacher.
But first and foremost it is about the artists, including the students from countries like Denmark, Finland and France, who go to Mali and study - som for years - like the members of the band FARATUBEN, who take on the Bwa culture and more or less live in Kati north of the capital.
Spot On Mali Music is like a baobab tree with branches forever reaching out and roots digging more and mor firmly into the soil of our beloved Mali.
