ALBUM BY ALBUM Afel Bocoum
“MY country is in an intense period of instability”, Afel Bocoum laments via a Zoom call from the Malian capital of Bamako. “We are trapped by the virus but long before that we’ve been dealing with terrorists and bandits and coups and rebellions.” Bamako is not the singer and guitarist’s home – which lies 350 miles north in Niafunke, a dusty desert town on the River Niger – but he was forced to flee several years ago by the jihadists who took over northern Mali and banned music, destroying all the instruments they could find. “Now the pandemic has shut everything down and it has become impossible to play live music,” he says.
“The city is not my space. I’m only here with my family for my peace of mind and I long for peace so we can go back home. We’ve lost a lot of time.”
Hopefully, Bocoum will also be taking to the road in 2021, touring the festivals with his compelling desert blues on the back of his recent, which has shot its way into Albums Of The Year.
