Arouna Diarra is a 12th-generation musician from Burkina Faso who makes his own instruments — including the kamale n’goni, which is similar to a harp. He’s also adept with a xylophone.
Diarra performed for The Show at the Musical Instrument Museum, and later The Show spoke with him and his wife Zaza to learn about their music and their history together.
Full conversation
STEVE GOLDSTEIN: This morning, we’re introducing you to Arouna Diarra. He is a 12th generation musician from Burkina Faso who makes his own instruments, including the kamale n’goni, which is similar to a harp. He’s also adept with a xylophone.
Arouna performed for us at the Musical Instrument Museum, and then I spoke more recently with Arouna and his wife, Zaza, to learn about their music and their history. Together, we started the conversation with Arouna describing his instruments.
AROUNA DIARRA: Well, the instrument I play is called kamale n’goni, and it’s a West African harp. I started playing this instrument when I was 11 with my family in Africa, Burkina Faso.
So my uncle, he was always building the instrument, and I always see him making it. I really love the sound, so I really get very interested. And I started learning from him a little bit until I was building for myself.
By the time I know I was playing, I was making for my friends. By the time I know, it is a business that I was doing later on.
But the instrument is basically made from goatskin, fishing nylon, a very strong wood. It can be mahogany, it can be West African wood, as long the wood is strong enough. And then with the bridge where the string will go, and the body is a calabash, a big gord. And everything is made by hand.
GOLDSTEIN: When it’s made by hand, just how much more pure, how much more special that makes it? Can you talk about that for a moment, just how important it is that it’s handmade?
ZAZA DIARRA: Every one of them, he acts like it’s the first one he’s building. Like, when he’s making the neck, he will sit there and sand it down and rub it and sand it. And he truly does it.
He mostly uses his hands. Sometimes, like, are you not gonna get your hand hurt by by the wood? But no he actually would use the power, he said, and put the oil, for instance, on it and keep rubbing it until it’s so soft that when you touch it, it looks like, you know, it was never wood, or that it went through some type of machines or equipments or something like that.
He spends at least four weeks making, making these instruments, and every one of them — from the bridge to the to the neck or the calabash, to taking the inside out. Mostly he gets them already made. The gord, the inside is already out, and it’s ready to go, but he has to cut it, clean it, pretty much refine it, wash them and keep them clean and pure.
And then, of course, when he puts the skin in the water, he has to place the skin on the calabash in less than 24 hours, so that the skin will remain strong and retain its color. So there is so much detail into it when he’s making them. And once it’s all put together, he has to play it for a couple of weeks every day to ensure that it stays in tune.
DIARRA: Yes, to have more connection with the instrument first, before even I want to give it to somebody.
GOLDSTEIN: Was that something you learned through the generations with your family, how to make it?
DIARRA: Yes, yes. Making the instrument is something that is in my family. We make balafons, xylophones, we make drums, we make violins. All kinds of handmade stuff. That’s what my family does in Africa. So basically, yeah, I learned from my family, just looking at them making it.
ZAZA DIARRA: I was going to say it’s important to note here that Arouna comes from a griot family, and his tribe in Africa is really dedicated to music and all aspects of it, including the building of the instruments. So this will be the only work that a griot will do in traditional times.
They work, of course, being to minister to the community, to minister to the king and to be a messenger, because they are also oral historians. So everything to do with communication, music being a big part of communication will be Arouna’s tribe.
So that is one of the reasons why I would say he was born with a gift, so to speak.
DIARRA: We play music from happiness to sadness. If somebody is born, we will play music. If somebody passes away, we are also going to play music. So music is part of our culture.
GOLDSTEIN: OK, so Arouna, this song we’re going to hear is “Kelemai.” Can you tell me about that song?
DIARRA: “Kelemai” is talking about getting along with each other. So instead of fighting with each other, we just need to come together for peace, for love, to make this world better for the new generation that is growing.
[Arouna and Zaza Diarra perform “Kelemai”]
GOLDSTEIN: When you perform — I mean, obviously you practice. You’re a 12th generation musician, and you’re great at it — but because a lot of it comes from your heart, will you practice and then find yourself on stage and go in almost a different direction because of what you’re feeling that particular performance?
DIARRA: People never understand why I’m doing things, you know, because if I’m playing the music and I’m feeling very excited, I will start going places. And then with the people, you realize with them, you want to do the show. Of course, you have to stick in one place. But for me, when I get very excited with what I’m doing, I just keep moving to places. And people, “Well, we never heard that part of the song. We never heard that break here. But we know at the same time, we kind of feel like we were blessed.”
ZAZA DIARRA: I always told him, you are a musician by birth. I just started yesterday, so we do take it easy with me. But I remember when we had our first performance at the Ice House, and Arouna told me to join, and I literally felt like I was fighting for dear life, because I was just working so hard to keep the beat. Because he told me, I am a timekeeper and how important the shekere playing was to him playing.
So thankfully, we are very much in sync, Arouna and I, for almost everything we do. So I almost know when he’s going to have a break. I know when he’s going up, but it was really, really challenging.
And then when it comes to singing, he told me, we will rehearse a song, and I will learn it verbatim. And then he gets on stage and changes that too, and I’m like, “Well, now what do I do?”
But obviously, as I’ve been playing with him, I have learned the way he plays and how he does it, and now I just know also that it’s only in my mind that it’s not perfect. In the listener’s mind, it is absolutely art, and it doesn’t have to be straight lines.
DIARRA: Each of my songs, I have like four or five different ways to play it.
GOLDSTEIN: OK. Arouna and Zaza Diarra, a great pleasure to talk with both of you. And now Zaza, as we close, tell us what this next song is about.
ZAZA DIARRA: So but the song is just saying “Ajaratu,” my love. I need you. I want you. Ajaratu from Burkina Faso, I love you.
[Arouna and Zaza Diarra perform “Ajaratu”]
If you’re in a band, or you know of one that you’d like to hear play for us, send us a note at [email protected].
