Lisboa,

Praça de Camoes (restaurant+terrace)

03.03.16, 15.30h

Kimi Djabate is a musician.

He comes from a small village called Tabatò in Guinè Bissau.
The inhabitants are griot and the main activities in the village are the dedication to fields, animals and to Music.

Nature surrounds the quiet village and nature is what Kimi most misses of the place he comes from; sometimes he takes his car and drives to Costa de Caparica, to be with himself, in nature, quiet.

In Guinè he was surrounded by gazelles, rabbits, snakes: he was used to their presence, without being afraid of them.
Tabatò is a village where there was no electric light until last year; Kimi was used to it and he would not mind if this would not have changed. He tells how people living there celebrated happily the arrive of electricity, a big change in their life.
Before this event, people were following a natural rhythm, going to sleep at nine with the sunset and returning to animate the streets at half past six in the early morning, with the sun rise.
Kimi reminds the sounds of birds, of people working and the sounds of Balafons (an african percussive wooden xylophone) mixing in the air with the music coming from other instruments.

I ask Kimi to explain the meaning of Griot: the community in West Africa that brought with them music, telling through it the history and the tradition of the people.
The Griots were also mediators among the governors of the different kingdoms, messengers and pacifying figures; in their organization usually men were playing and women were singing.

Kimi’s family comes from Mali, his grandparents played for the King of Guinè who, not having musicians, invited them to stay offering them the land of Tabatò; his grandfather was the brother of Sidike Djabatè, the father of Tuomani Diabatè.
Kimi describes his grandfather as a generous lively person who was taking care of the community…even Kimi, until a certain age, considered the man as his father, for the attentions he received from him. He was apparently taking care of every child as his own, with the same care: when he could buy food or a present it was for everyone ..or for no one; he was the organizer of the village giving food sometimes to 30 people gathering together around three big pots.
His name is Badjali, that means “Father of Griots” .
He knew how to play Toncoron (called Ngoni in Mali), Dun-dun, Tamà, Balafon, and he played, sang and told stories.
Kimi learned alone to play balafon: in his village balafons where available to everyone, as a toy for children to enjoy, learn and entertain them selves;
Kimi was sent to a village near Tabatò, to learn cora, but after six months he escaped going back home…he wanted to play balafon, learn quickly, and play an instrument people could dance to (at that time he also explains, cora had not the importance it has today and Kimi did not think it as so masculine an instrument as the balafon).

I ask Kimi what is music for him.

Music to Kimi is an Arm he can defend himself with: it is a way to transmit what he thinks and feels, what he sees around him, the conflicts of his country; an arm against politicians or to communicate with them, making them reflect.

Kimi comes to Europe in 1995, leaving his first home to look for a new one.
He liked to arrive in Europe, an experience he defines as a second birth, to a new and completely different life.
He thinks that people traveling to a new place have to adapt and accept to transform themselves;
For Kimi this has been a hard, but also very interesting process, teaching him many new things he could even not imagine before…
now he feels stronger and feels lucky.
In Lisbon he feels Home, to the point that sometimes, while visiting Guinè, he discovers a “saudade” for Lisbon, a city that he defines as ideal to meet people and musicians from different countries and to have enriching human and cultural exchanges.
Kimi thinks that integration in the society, the contact with the inhabitants of the place we visit or we live in, is very important.

In Lisbon he feels free: free to sing and speak about what he wants and thinks…a freedom he does not feel in Guinè.
In Europe the bureaucracy is complicated he admits, but he says it is just a way to organize things, something possible to learn and that people simply have to learn and respect.

Kimi remembers how he came here with not many contacts or organized things. He admits he does not need to count too much on security.
When he travels he believes he will meet people that will help him, identifying with him.
In Africa, people help each other, and going there he tells me, anyone would not spend too long alone in the street without the locals coming to ask if some help is needed… maybe because of this reason Kimi traveled at 21 years of age, trusting he would find his way.

Kimi had different houses in Lisbon before he found the current one where he lives since seven years ago, feeling comfortable there.
He believes that sometimes entering a new space can be difficult at first times, but, after a while, we adapt to it, finding with it an identification.
In his place he feels home also because of the presence of his instruments: the same that he had in Tabatò…

When he thinks about this house and about Lisbon he feels “silence” …the silence of a safe quiet place…I ask him if he doesn’t think that this city is noisy…noise to him would mean listening to shooting in the streets, to conflicts…this is what he calls noise…something he does not perceive living in Lisbon.

Kimi’s third CD is coming out soon…it is called “Kanamalù” …it means "not be ashamed of who you are"…referred to him it would signify not to be ashamed of his condition and origin: being a Griot in front of the world!

 

…to listen is to imagine…

Thank you Kimi for this meeting…after a long time, for the pleasure of sharing new ideas…

Good Listening!

SPACE:

This interview recording took place partly in a small restaurant in the center of Lisbon, sitting in a corner of the room, next to a window; a space with a low ceiling, full of small tables. The second part happened on a terrace on the fifth floor of a building in the same quarter with an astonishing view on the Tejo river, a space protected on the sides and on the roof by fabric, to control and minimize the wind.