Something very special this evening for “music night” at The Wild Reed – an almost two-hour live performance by singer-songwriter Daby Touré.
It’s Friday night here in Minneapolis, the end of a rather long and draining work week. The chill sounds of Daby Touré are just what I need to relax and unwind. Maybe they’ll do the same for you too.
Not familiar with Daby Touré? Well, he was born in the West African nation of Mauritania and raised in neighboring Senegal. However, for the last twenty-or-so years he’s been living in Paris. An internationally known and respected artist, Daby’s been described as a “remarkably sensitive but energized and engaging performer.” His music has been referred to as “global soul-tinged pop” and a “soothing balm for the soul.”
The concert I share tonight is from 2015, when Daby performed at the Haybarn Theater in Plainfield, Vermont. Enjoy!
So what’s Daby up to today?
Well, just yesterday he was in Montréal in the studios of CBC Radio Canada, performing a number of songs to promote his upcoming July 7 appearance at the Nuit D’Afrique festival . . . and sporting a new haircut!
I’m happy to see him back out there doing his thing, and hopefully a new album is in the works as well!
Over the past two years or so I’ve collected all of Daby’s albums. To date, there are four: Diam (2004), Stereo Spirit (2007), Lang(u)age (2012), and Amonafi (2015).
They’re all great works of music; “a testament,” as one critic notes, “to the power of music to transcend linguistic barriers.” It’s music that’s also ensured that Daby Touré has become one of my favorite contemporary male singer-songwriters.
Something very special this evening for “Music Night” at The Wild Reed – Africa Channel's 2015 interview with one of my favorite musicians, Daby Touré.
In this 9-minute video, Daby talks about the role of music in his life, his musical inspirations, and how music from Africa is at the roots of genres such as Blues and Jazz.
“African music is everywhere,” says Daby. “It travelled a long, long time ago when the slaves from Africa [were brought] to the United States. And what they did was the Blues. That's African music. Rock'n'Roll is African music. Most of the time we forget that. . . . [Their traditional music] was mixed with the music of Europe and something amazing happened. . . . Inside of their suffering, inside of their really, really difficult story, something really amazing came out. And it was music: the Blues and then Jazz . . . And that's what Africa brings to the world.”
More beauty and wisdom from Daby . . .
• [As musicians] we have a responsibility to society. . . . We're not supposed to do hits. We are not supposed to be rich. . . . We are supposed to listen to people, their joy, their sadness, their problems, and just try to transcend this and give it back to people who can [then use what we've created] to organize themselves.
• Music is my politics; harmony and what music can make you feel. At that moment you open and can hear the message. And the message is talking about human beings . . . about their past, their story, and about what happened in Africa; what really happened in the beginning [of the colonial era] and why things are like [they are today] and why there is division and hatred [in the world].
• It's a time for all of us in the world, for human beings, to understand that we all are the same, and we all come from the same place, and we are all going to the same place. And it is time for us to understand that we have to live together.
Perhaps no song of Daby's explores more directly this imperative to understand and live together than “Oma,” the lead single from his 2015 album, Amonafi. And as you'll see below, the official music video for “Oma” also powerfully conveys this imperative.
About “Oma” and its parent album, Amonafi, Marco Werman and Steven Davy write the following.
Singer-songwriter Daby Touré's latest album, Amonafi, is sonically compelling [and] thematically is for our time. A lot of the songs on it are about displacement and address many Africans' desire to go to Europe to seek a better life.
But, there’s one song though called “Oma” that suggests Europe is not all that it’s cracked up to be. So we wanted to know what Touré thought as the world witnesses thousands of migrants and refugees pouring into Europe right now.
His home base is Paris, and he meets many people who've arrived there from far-flung crisis spots around the world. This is the starting point for “Oma.”
“I wrote this song because I was seeing people every day outside,” he says in an interview at Berklee's Café 939 in Boston. “And there was this woman down on the street . . . I would always say hello and we would talk a little bit. And one day we had a really good talk. She told me about her life and the difficulties she has with her children – and the fact that she’s homeless. What surprised me was [how] everyday we pass in front of these people and we get used to it.”
Touré, who is from Mauritania and Senegal in West Africa, says he really wanted to write a song and talk about her story.
“It wasn’t easy, but I did it because I was seeing these people coming out from everywhere – from all the poor countries and from Africa of course,” he says. “What is really interesting to see is how people are reacting in front of these refugees coming out from Syria. Everybody is scared and we don’t have to be.”
That woman he met on the streets of Paris, along with the refugees and the migrants who are coming over to Europe right now, seem to echo Touré's own story of displacement.
“My story is the same,” he says. “When I was 2 years old, my parents got separated and my father started to send me everywhere: Senegal, Mauritania, to his mother, to his uncle. For him it was important for me to learn life earlier.”
Touré says that because he was largely on his own, he had to learn to communicate with people and understand the differences between the communities he was dropped into and himself.
“Every time I had to find a way to make myself like ‘I’m part of you, can you accept me?' And so this is how my life started,” he says. “So I can really understand these people I can feel exactly what they feel.”
Today I celebrate 54 years of life on this beautiful planet and of connection to some truly inspiring individuals and communities.
And I have to say that for all of this I am grateful beyond measure.
As has been the tradition at The Wild Reed, I mark the occasion of my birthday by sharing a song or prayer or reflection that I find particularly meaningful.
On my 44th birthday, for instance, I shared Stephan Gately's performance of “No Matter What,” and when I turned 45 I shared “Where the Truth Lies” by the band Exchange.
In 2012, when I turned 47, I shared a prayer for balance at a very trying time, not only for me, but for many of us here in Minnesota.
Five years ago, on the first day of my fiftieth year, I shared a “guidepost on the journey,” and then one year later on the day of my 50th birthday, I shared Buffy Sainte-Marie's rousing “It's My Way.”
In 2017, when I turned 52, I shared a beautiful poem by John O'Donohue; while last year on my 53rd birthday, I shared vocalist Carl Anderson's “Love Is,” a beautiful and powerful meditation on the mystery of love (something I seem to be constantly pondering and wrestling with!)
This year I'm happy to share “This Is the Time,” a beautiful song by Senegalese singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daby Touré. It's from his 2012 album Lang(u)age.
Daby Touré's music has been described as a “soothing balm for the soul,” and, as World Beat International notes, even though Toure's “roots extend back to Mali, his family has spread to Senegal and Mauritania where Daby was raised soaking up the sounds of a vibrant, cultural hub.” Then, “like so many West African musicians before him, Daby fled the instability of the region to pursue his career in Paris.” It's not surprising, then, that Lang(u)age is an “intimate musical rendition of personal memories and multiple identities.”
The album version of “This Is the Time,” features French rapper Oxmo Puccino. However, in the 2015 live rendition below, Daby performs the song solo. (For Daby's full 30-minute performance and interview in the studio of Seattle's KEXP Radio, click here.)
After the video, I'll talk a little about why I chose to share Daby's “This Is the Time” on my birthday this year.
In my life when I try
In my life
There's a sign it is so
In my life
Read the sign and I know
It is so
In your life that you see
It is so
It's so easy for a man to lose control
In everyone he knows
And again we face a lonely naked soul
Time to let it go
Don't blame me now
This is the time time time time
For us for us for us
This is so
Higher love
It is so
This is so
Higher love
It is so
Comin' in
Do you know higher love?
This is mine
This is ours
Don't let go
This is the time time time time
For us for us for us
I've been through a lot this past year: my dear Dad died, I started working full time as a palliative care chaplain, I ended a four-year relationship, and I moved house . . . twice.
Lots of endings, you could say, but also lots of beginnings. . . . and a very real sense that, as Daby Touré sings, this is the time.
I feel it deep within me. . . . Feel that it is not only a time of new beginnings but also of new understandings, new possibilities, a new level of awareness and action.
And I'm not just talking about within my personal life. I'm sure everyone reading this knows that the whole of humanity is currently being challenged by things like the climate crisis and the rise of authoritarianism. Such things can be paralyzing for some, but I see them as challenging us to evolve our way of being in the world.
Daby puts it in the following way when talking about “This Is the Time”:
It's a time for all of us in the world, for human beings, to understand that we all are the same, and we all come from the same place, and we are all going to the same place. And it is time for us to understand that . . . we have to live together.
I understand this “same place” as the place of awareness and embodiment of the “higher love” that Daby sings about.
Is it any wonder, then, that I'm so drawn to the presidential campaign of spiritual author Marianne Williamson. (I'm pictured at right wearing my “Marianne 2020” cap when out walking last weekend in the woods!) . . . I mean, Marianne and her campaign are all about recognizing the need to embody this higher love in and through our lives, and thus our politics, so as to to go beyond the symptoms and address and transform the underlying problems that are causing so much harm in our lives and throughout the United States.
We need to do some radical truth-telling here. It can't just be a policy fix here and a policy fix there. It can't just be talking about the symptoms. We have to present to the American people a far more holistic, integrated vision of a real fundamental turning – a turning of the heart.
The hope for this country lies in the embrace of a politics that does not flow like bile from the power of an amoral economic system, but from the power of deep humanitarian principles at the core of our democracy. This speaks not just to changes in Washington but to changes in our hearts as well.
These are spiritually revolutionary times.
Rehearsal is over.
The time of change is now.
Such an insightful call to action brings to mind Greg Korn's recent YouTube comment: “Marianne Williamson has a rare ability to articulate the ethics of the Left in an approachable, graceful, confident, and wildly intelligent way. I truly believe that she's the most intellectually and philosophically sophisticated candidate I've seen in my lifetime.”
Marianne Williamson invites all of us to use politics as an instrument of love. Indeed, for decades, through her books and her activism, she has urged humanity to return to – and act out of – its deepest value and highest aspiration: love.
Her campaign theme song, appropriately enough, is Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." But I think it could just as easily be Daby Touré's "This Is the Time"!
May it indeed be the time for all of us . . .
The time that sees each of us open ourselves to the love deep within us and all around us.
The time when in both our personal lives and our lives as members of society, we embody love and, in doing so, actively and consciously cast out fear and hate.
The time when we let go of all that constricts, oppresses, and consumes
The time when we welcome and trust the bold and the new and the extravagantly generous.
The time when we risk being vulnerable and trust that we are worthy of love.
The time when we read the signs around us and together act accordingly.
The time when it is so.
This is so
Higher love
It is so
This is so
Higher love
It is so
Comin' in
Do you know higher love?
This is mine
This is ours
This is the time time time time
For us for us for us
For more of Daby Touré at The Wild Reed, see the previous post:
• Daby Touré
As always with Touré, a champion melodist, his melodies are clear, beautiful, and sticky enough to become earworms. The harmonies are trance-inducing, definitely reminding of a pure and authentic form of African music. The lyrics are varied, from touching on political issues to observations on his states of mind.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George
"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
