prior to finding the cd-single to "african woman", where the masters at work remix of "gorel" is also featured, the only thing i knew about baaba maal was that he was senegalese and his song "souka nayo". even then the version i knew the most was thievery corporation's remix which featured little from the original composition. with "african woman" it was the kind of material i was looking for, songs or artists that i didn't know of but seemed interesting or had remixes. they could be by people that i never heard of but it was they were many in the amount, i'd scoop it out.
on "gorel" it was a concious decision to branch out to european scene with regards to the drum machines and breaks used underneath it all. now when i mean europe i do by default mean france because of a large number of senegalese immigrants following the colonisation of senegal etc. also as so called "world music" was seeing fame when set to a four on the floor thump, as in the example of guinean singer mory kanté's fame following "yé ké yé ké".
reason for using dancemusic to be the outreach is when dance acts started sampling drums rhythms & vocals to spice up their tr-909 driven house tracks. producers & dj's understood that as long as it's rhythmic no one is going to care what language the vocalists sings in. an other reason is that it fit the background of the so called tribal drums that they took from their recently purchased "world music" cd.
bottom line, in most respects it's a matter of exoticism and/or colonial robbery, disguised as cultural fascination. it's more obvious in a setting where the music and culture is being sampled and by that i mean without permission. as in the cases of enigma or deep forest when they're jacking chants and sounds left and right and setting them to a four on the floor. you're not promoting culture from the solomon islands by taking a recording of a baeggu lullaby and setting it to a drumbeat, you're just robbing someone else's culture and making money out it.
never the less on a glance, it does seam better on when this is done on their own terms as baaba maal gets to promote his own culture and music. then there is that overshadowing fact that it's still done to a locked machine drumbeat, but if you listen the song in a live setting it's more to the root. part of me wonders why i went on this negative sidetrack as i'm not going to talk about the album version but a remix. something that you could say furthermore whitewashes the original song, the difference though is that masters at work does a classier job at it.
masters at work were at this stage exploring rhythms from their own latin backgrounds but also their own liking of fela kuti and drums from all over the globe. to set the song in a housey club setting without it being tacky or dated, you steer away from clichés of the time and do timehonoured clichés like pianodriven house with the percussion reacting and having it's own progression. kenny dope gonzalez & louie vega also took help of percussionist anthony "starvin t" cordero to add some own additional drums and they fit well in the mix. masters at work do their brand of new york garage the best and supplied me with this gem. well recommended.
listen here (youtube)
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