Daby Touré

小简介
TOURE家族近两代人的故事听起来象个神话——从前，有四兄弟住在马里附近的小村子，以捕鳄并制作鳄鱼皮制品为生。大概是因为干旱或者是过度捕捉的原因，鳄鱼数量大大减少，这个家族不得不另谋生路。四兄弟各自选择了一个方向四散而去，从此再也没有见面。其中一个叫“Daby Toure”跑到了塞内加尔最南边的省份Casamance，娶了四个老婆，生了一群孩子。不知道是什么原因，这一支Toure家的人有着良好的音乐天赋，其中一个叫“Hamidou Toure”的毛里塔尼亚当上了医生，娶了个有一半摩尔人血统的漂亮女人，生了儿子，取名还是叫“Daby Toure”，用以纪念他的祖父。当地人种混杂，Daby Toure从小就生活在不同文化和语言交融的环境里，除了学习各种语言和音乐之外，种田、放牛样样都能干。他后来回忆起这段乡村童年的经历时说：“……艰难的乡村生活是我一生中最重要的时期，因为我在那里被铸造成形。”在那些天鹅绒般温暖的夜晚，他和小伙伴们用罐头盒、铁桶、纸箱练习音乐节奏，有时候还会被邀请去婚礼上表演。
虽然他父亲Hamidou一直反对他以音乐为职业，Daby还是利用各种机会学习各种乐器，还从收音机里收听西方流行音乐，一边听一边学。1989年，正是毛里塔尼亚政局不稳、民族之间冲突严重的当口，Daby父亲的兄弟邀请他父亲加入Toure Kunda乐队，于是他随同父亲到了巴黎，这对于18岁的Daby来说，简直大开眼界，接触到了更多的音乐学习机会，还和堂弟搞了个名叫“Toure Toure”的乐队……再后来，尽管乐队和一些致力于搞法国融合爵士的法国音乐人合作，出版了一张在法国颇受欢迎的专辑[Ladde]，而且还开了百十来场演唱会，Daby却对乐队的发展很不满意。看起来媒体和听众对根源非洲的音乐和舞蹈更感兴趣。Daby认为：“我演奏的音乐其根基在于探索和原创。正象画家一起床就要画画一样，我一早起来，就抱着吉他开始工作。我不知道自己要去哪里，但我一直往前走。”
Daby把自己锁在房间里，用家里的设备开始写歌编曲。他自己作曲、编曲、演奏、混音，逐渐形成了个人化风格十分明显的音乐。经过这样几年的努力，Daby又和电子音乐高手Cyrille Dufay组队，出版了充满探索和实验色彩的专辑：[Diam]，也就是“和平”的意思。不过这乡下来的同学所讲的和平和始皇帝的和平大大不同，Daby在音乐里讲述着自己的经历、周围的人、他的家庭、自由和那些艰苦的岁月，他的“和平”是一个人内心深处的渴望。因为Daby知道自己从哪里来，这让他可以毫无畏惧地大胆前行。
Daby's story goes back two generations and has a fairy tale beginning. Once upon a time, there were four brothers who lived in a village near Kayes, in what is now the modern state of Mali. They were all shoemakers and leather workers and they strived to sustain the old traditional family trade by turning the skins of crocodiles from the nearby river into shoes, bags, pouches and wallets. But for some reason, perhaps drought or excessive hunting, the crocodile population began to fall dramatically and the family were no longer able to live from their craft. The brothers decided to disperse to the four winds and they never saw each other again. One of them, Daby Toure, went to live near Zinguinchor in Casamance, the southernmost province of Senegal, where he married four wives and produced a large brood of children. For reasons that no one has ever been able to really explain, this new Toure generation was touched by a deep love and gift for music. A younger member of the clan, Hamidou Toure, was brought up by an uncle up north in Mauritania. Once he had graduated as a doctor in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, he was sent to a sand blown desert town called Boutilimit, where he married a beautiful woman, who was half Moorish or Hassaniya and half Toucouleur. They gave birth to a son who they called Daby, in honour of his grandfather, the patriarch of the family.
Mauritania is situated on the fault line between Moorish North Africa and sub-Saharan black Africa. As you travel south from its northern border with Morocco, the unrelenting lifelessness of the deep desert cross fades into the dry bushy scrubland of the 'coast' or sahel, as the Arabs used to call it, of the southern grasslands and forests. A big river, the Senegal, marks the southern boundary of this modern nation state. Although the lighter skinned Moors have always held political and social power in the country, more than half the population belong to black ethnic groups; Toucouleur, Fulbe, Soninke and Wolof. The country always lived comfortably with its own ethnic and cultural diversity, until the late 1980s, when dark forces disturbed this harmony and bitter inter-ethnic conflict held sway for a while.
Daby grew up in Boutilimit, Nouakchott, and Casmance before going to live with an uncle in the village of Djeole, near Kaedi, on the banks of the Senegal river. His parents had divorced, and Daby's father couldn't be seen to be raising young children on his own. In Djeole, Daby soaked up the language, culture and music of his Soninke people, as well as those of the neighbouring Toucouleur and Wolof. He learned all about farming and cattle rearing. It was a secure village childhood. 'With hindsight, I think the times I spent in the village were the most important in my life, because that's where I was forged,' Daby remembers. In the black velvet warmth of the night, he would get together with friends to bang out rhythms on old tins, canisters and cardboard boxes and entertain the village. And when diversion was required at henna and wedding feasts, Daby and his mates would often be sent for.
Later, Daby moved back to the capital Nouakchott to live with his father. After a tiring day at the hospital, Hamidou would often relax by playing music with his friends. Daby wasn't allowed to touch the guitars, because his father did not want him to develop any crazy ideas about becoming a musician. But he stole time on the instruments anyway and taught himself the basics. He also began discovering the exotic joys of western pop music, thanks to radio, pirated cassettes and the occasional TV broadcast. The Police, Dire Straights, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were powerful formative influences. Although a deep fascination and hunger for music was developing in the teenager, Daby's father continued to insist that music was not a career option for a any well brought-up young man. 'In Mauritania, the profession of musician doesn't really exist,' explains Daby. 'A profession is something you train for and get a diploma. My father was more fearful for me than anything else, because he knew what a musician's life consisted of and for him it wasn't a future.'
In 1989, political unrest and inter-ethnic conflict was making life in Mauritania very difficult, so when Hamidou received an invitation from his younger brothers Sixu and Ismael to join their group Toure Kunda, although at first he hesitated, the offer seemed too good to refuse. He sold his house to pay for his son to come along with him. The rich musical life of Paris was a magical revelation to the eighteen-year-old Daby, and although his father continued to brow-beat him about his studies, music slowly became his whole life. He began to play little gigs in bars and college parties with rock and cover bands. After he finally gave up his course at Business School, despite his father's objections, and went to live in an African hostel or foyer in Paris, Daby teamed up with his cousin Omar and formed Toure Toure; the two 'Toures'. They began to explore the vivid common frontiers of jazz and African music.
A meeting with Jean-Pierre Como, the keyboard player with established avant-jazz-fusionists Sixun, kick-started a chain-reaction which lead to a record deal with French independent label Pygmalion Records and the release of Toure Toure's one and only album 'Ladde'. The Sixun connection opened up the doors to the bubbling Parisian jazz scene, with its open-mindedness and vitality, and Daby fell in love with bands like Weather Report, Joe Zawinul and Pat Metheny. It was their originality and artistry that fascinated him above all else. Despite the fact that 'Ladde' was very well received in France and Toure Toure played hundreds of concerts all over the country, as well as further a-field in Canada and Brazil, Daby felt dissatisfied with the band's progress. It seemed that the industry, the media and audiences were only interested in the roots, African and dance band aspects of the group.
'The music that I play is based on exploration, on original compositions. It's like a painter who gets up to paint a painting. I get up in the morning, I pick up my guitar and I start working. I don't know where I'm going but I go.'
Daby locked himself away in his room, with his own home-studio and equipment and began to write and arrange songs. He controlled every aspect of the creative process, from composition, to arrangements, to performance and mixing. That was important. Daby was in pursuit of a very individual musical vision, and he needed the time, space and solitude to make it a reality.
After several years hard work, Daby teamed up with electronic musician and digital wizard Cyrille Dufay to develop the sound further. The result of all this experimentation, exploration and hard graft is 'Diam'.
The songs on the album tell of Daby's life, of the people around him and of the world in general. He sings of relationships, his family, freedom and, above all, of being positive when times are hard. It is perfectly fitting then that the title, 'Diam', means peace, something that Daby has looked for throughout his life.
It is because Daby is sure of where he comes from that he can move forward without fear