MandinGroove

Over the years, the musical exchanges between Africa and the West have been fascinating. African rhythms have had a direct or indirect impact on a variety of musical genres that started in the West — everything from jazz, blues, R&B, and rap in the United States, to salsa, bachata-merengue, plena, samba, and cumbia in Latin America. And things came full circle when many of those western art forms influenced African pop in countries ranging from Ethiopia to Mozambique to Nigeria. The western influence is also quite strong in the Afro-pop of Mali, where Cheick-Tidiane Seck was born and raised. Recorded in 1999, 2002, and 2003 in three different cities (Paris, New York, and Los Angeles), MandinGroove thrives on the sort of east-meets-west energy that Manu Dibango, King Sunny Ade, Habib Koité, Mahmoud Ahmed, and the late Fela Kuti are all known for. Kuti, in fact, is among the many influences on this 76-minute CD, which combines African sensibilities with a healthy appreciation of soul, funk, jazz, and hip-hop. But MandinGroove, Seck's first solo project, doesn't get into the really extended jams that Kuti often favored, and he has an appealing personality of his own. Although most of the lyrics are not in English, MandinGroove is full of American influences — which can range from an Isley Brothers-minded guitar solo to an Earth, Wind & Fire-flavored horn arrangement to a Charles Earland-ish use of the Hammond B-3 organ (an instrument that Seck plays extensively on this release). Seck wears more than one hat on MandinGroove; in addition to singing lead and playing various instruments (keyboards, piano, and acoustic guitar on top of his B-3), he produced the disc and wrote most of the material. MandinGroove is not only an album of hypnotic, memorable grooves; it's also a demonstration of how enriching multiculturalism can be.