Thomas Hale (Griots and Griottes) Phone Interview 17 May 1999
The book is a synthesis of a whole lot of information about keepers of the oral tradition in West Africa. It's based on both my research and the research of many other scholars. Griots and griottes are the people who keep the history and genealogy...the have quite a few other functions., almost too numerous to mention, but this is kind of the first comprehensive look at them. I don't know if you want me to run down the list of everything they do or not. I think that's what you were gonna do... OK let me do it. They're historians, advisors, genealogists, spokespersons, diplomats, mediators, interpreters and translators, musicians, composers, teachers, exhorters, warriors, witnesses, praise-singers, and they participate in almost every kind of ceremony from naming to initiation, courtships, marriages, installations of chiefs and sometimes even funerals. So they're all-purpose people of the word and music. My next question is, I guess, what's this got to do with us? Where would we hear a griot? Well, you'd hear them all over the place. Probably an American saw them on TV when Roots and Roots II were shown. Back in the '70s Alex Haley went to Gambia looking for his own roots and in search of griots and in a sense both the novel, the narrative Roots and the film series after that. But the other way is that the music of griots is spreading around the world, now. There are griots permanently settles in Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago, I don't know if there are any in Texas yet, but don't wait too long, they'll be there soon. So there is...they're verbal and musical artists spreading around the world. When I was reading the book, it seemed like they all had the same last name almost! Are there certain last names that you should look for? Yeh, they come from different ethnic groups, but with the largest family of people say, the Mande family, in that family the most common griot name is Kuyate, so anytime you bump into anyone with the name Kuyate, even though they may not be a practicing griot, they will know what a griot is, certainly. So there's a close clan tie to their identity. Now I have a record here which is called Dembo Konte and K-A-U-S-U... COW-su" Kuyate...are they both griots then? Yes, in fact Dembo and his late father El Haji Bi (?) Konte visited Penn State in 1980 and I've been to their home in The Gambia, interviewed them both, I haven't met Kausu Kuyate, but Konte is sort of another version of Kuyate. So they're...Dembo is well know. He performs in London quite often and travels around the world, has made lots of CDs. This is an English record. Yeh. Now you're from Penn State. Right. You got into doing this a long time...in the Peace Corps, is that it? Well, I first encountered a griot when I was in the peace corps in October 1964. I was in Niger, a country that is often confused with Nigeria, but spelled N-I-G-E-R. And I woke up one morning about 6 AM and heard a lot of noise in the compound next to mine, so I went out and looked over the wall and there was this h-- griot singing the praises of my next door neighbor. And I didn't know what I was doing so I asked him to shut up. He ignored me. I went back to bed and he kept on doing this. So I went back and looked again, and I saw my neighbor, who was one of the pillars of the community, walk out of the house and hand the man a very expensive woven blanket, so that was my first encounter with griots. They get paid by people who... they don't actually get a salary, they get paid by gifts, don't they? Yes. They're rewarded by their services and those may range from a few coins to blankets to animal to a sack of gold. And today people get airplane tickets to Mecca, houses, cars...in one case a woman received a small airplane from a man. That must be really nice! Right. I also realized when I was reading the book that they don't seem to be quite "normal" people over there...they're a specific class? Yeh. That's a complicated question. They are different. I wouldn't call them abnormal, but they are certainly different. They're not of noble origin, they're not of captive origin, They are part of a separate category of artisans and in that category one would find blacksmiths and other artisans and they don't marry others outside of their group. And they are seen as different because people both enjoy their music and their words, but they also fear the power of their words. So they do sort of stand away from others in a social sense. I liked the story about how they had to bury them in a hollow tree because they couldn't be put in the ground. Yeh, that only in one region what we call the Sene-Gambian region made up of Senegal and Gambia. That's a tradition which died out, oh, probably 2 generations ago but it was true that they were buried in trees, they were not allowed to be buried in the ground, because people thought they in a sense would pollute the ground. You could draw a parallel between this attitude and the attitude towards actors in the 16th century in France; the great French playwright and actor Moliere could not be buried in a Christian ceremony because he was a theater person...they didn't allow that at the time. No to change the subject a little bit from their lives, if I were gonna listen..you were talking about the instruments that they play, if you heard them over here, was it a kora that they would usually play over here? Yeh, that's what is on the cover of the book in fact, the kora. But I think you were also saying that they played the lute quite a bit over there. Yeh, the lute is far more common, far more widespread across the Sahel and the savanna region. The kora is played quite widely as well, but its home is in the Sene-Gambian region. But for all kinds of reasons it's become more popular because that region is closer and has a longer contact with Europe. And the musicians I think that play the kora are thought of as rather fascinating. The instrument itself is interesting. It's a long harplike instrument. But I think that over time, the lute will come into its own outside of Africa as more griots travel. Another point you brought up...about women...I couldn't pronounce that word... Griots and Gree-OTTS [French pronunciation] Griottes. They don't play the same instruments? Right. There's a little overlap in here in the area with some drums and other things, but in general there's a pretty clear-cut gender separation on instruments and like so many other things there's no explanation for it. They have their own musical world and that compliments the mans musical world. I think you had a story about...that you were going to tell and I was trying to remember if any of them had to do with women... I may have mentioned the one that had the airplane. There's a very very famous and popular female griot or griotte, Kandia Kouyate who has produced several CDs, she's wildly popular in Mali, and when she was performing one time a wealthy millionaire businessman, who is himself of griot origin, followed her after the performance, she sang a praise song for him, he's the one who gave her a small airplane, so that she could come and visit him more often. That's really nice. But should I tell the other side of the story with president Clinton? The business man, Babonishi Soco (?) is very wealthy and very well-known in the Griot world, he was identified by the democratic national committee a couple years ago as a potential donor to the democratic party. And it seems that they were going to set up a dinner for him and President Clinton in Philadelphia in 1996, but at the last minute he had to cancel because he was under house arrest. It seems that he had been trying to export some helicopters illegally and had bribed a customs official. So he ended up with 4 months of prison time and 4 months under house arrest in Miami, so one day he was sitting in a hotel watching a high school band go marching by and since he was a connoisseur of music he went out to ask what were they doing and they said that they were trying to raise money to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. So he handed them a check for three hundred thousand dollars which I'm sure covered their expenses to New York. What he was doing by giving them this check was not only showing his appreciation but showing his own high status as one who is important, and in a sense trying to make himself more appreciated in a country where he had gotten himself into a little bit of legal trouble. In any case he never did get to have dinner with President Clinton. But its different than in this country, that you would pay for somebody to sing your praises, I suppose, isn't it? What would the lyrics be to a song like that? I'm going to pretend I'm a griot for a moment here and I'm singing your praises. I would say "Judith is the great radio talk show host in Texas and the most wonderful show. And important people come onto her show. And everyone listens to her show. "And I'd go on and on singing your praises. I might exaggerate a little bit, embroider a bit about it. And if your last name was a name that I could connect with other famous people then I would make that connection. Now this would be a ...I would be a third rate griot. A really good griot wouldn't have to stoop to that kind of tactics, but I would be trying to get some money from you. That's the problem in the griot world...there are lots of third rate and fake griots out there. They're out there trying to get money from people whereas an authentic griot would never do that. We're talking to...you want to introduce yourself again for the people who are driving in their cars? Yes. My name is Thomas Hale and I'm professor of African, French, and comparative literature at Pennsylvania State University and my book Griots and Griottes: Masters Of Words and Music has just been published by Indiana University Press. It's actually out in the stores now? I think it is. The official date was April 30, but I can't imagine that the academic book is in every store. If they want to buy it they can call the 800 number. (Clip) It's a big thick thing...Isn't in a way mostly sociology? That's a good question. My field is literature...African literature, and I collect African epics and publish them. But when I started work on this book I realized I was getting into anthropology, linguistics, sociology, history, all kinds of other fields, so it's a blend of many different disciplines. I think it was listed in the Chronicle of Higher Education listing of new books under Anthropology but... I think its called Folklore here. Yeh. One of the points that I thought you brought up was that the griot's life is changing...that its a lot different from what it used to be. Yeh. Very much so. There are still griots in small villages practicing their professions, but they're being drawn to the big city because that's where the rewards are and the audiences are. And then the more enterprising of them are going around the world now and as they do that, their music is being influenced by other sources. So there's quite a bit of what we call ferment in this griot world right now. One of the CDs I got because I got it from Putumayo is Habib Koite and I think David Dye on World Café said the he is a griot. He's got the right name for it. But they have quite a bit of rock and they have quite a bit of blues in there as well. Yeh. You'll find...I've got a lot of these CDs and you find that they're mixing all kinds of things in them. Bringing in pianists and all sorts of things, there's a lot of experimentation going on and I think that's a sign of well, it's a sign of social change maybe but it's a sign that the griots are highly adaptive. They've been practicing their profession for a couple thousand years and they've survived the influence of lets say Muslim culture in West Africa, European Culture, and now the Independence Era. They're still going strong. Do you have anybody to recommend? In the appendix I have a list of audio recordings by griots. Well, there's a young fellow in Mali, Toumani Diabate who has been doing a lot of experimental...he's been doing work with synthesizers and all kids of things. He comes from probably the most prestigious and oldest griot family in Mali. So he combines tradition with, let's say outside influence. The other one would be probably Fode Musa Suso, he's done something called Dreamtime with 11 tracks containing all kinds of things, saxophones, it's a blend of traditional tunes and some western accompaniment. Is that what you might hear in Mali or Senegal. Not necessarily. You might hear groups that will have a kora player and would be playing more contemporary music, but this kind of blending is the product more of contact with the west in the west. Fode Musa Suso is based in Chicago and I think he's been here for a number of years so he's done a lot of experimental work. And the last one Al Haji Papa Susso, he's done one, A Gathering Of Elders for Water Lily Acoustics where he has some traditional tunes, but he has some vocals by a contralto named Pat Patrick and a soprano named Michelle Sawyer, so there's a lot going on in this world, there's a lot of change going on I'd say. If you turned on the radio in one of these countries would you hear music like this? Is it a land of cassettes? Yes, it is loaded with cassettes. People will record off the radio. You can walk into any outdoor market and say "I'd like a cassette of so and so or so and so" and they'll hand you something that has been copied by hand so to speak off some little master they've made off the radio. Cassettes are everywhere. So you'll hear lots of traditional music but you'll also hear some of these blends... Some of the wilder stuff... Yeh, it's a very vibrant marketplace right now, and women are becoming increasingly important in it, in fact, Mali, one of my ethnomusicologist colleagues said that women dominate 80% of the market. Hmm In fact the men are complaining about it. The men kora players in Mali have formed an association because they are being treated like just back-up musicians and the women are the stars. That's not the case in Senegal or Gambia where I think the mean are still in charge. But there's an awful lot of change there and the woman are coming to the... The women are getting the airplanes. Exactly. There's one anecdote where there's talk of the profession becoming feminized. One little anecdote that I've noted in the book says that the griot says that another griot's wife went off to Paris to perform and the man was left home to take care of the kids. Oh dear. That's terrible! Are the women getting paid then? Oh Yeh. I have one videotape of Haime Koite...very well known female singer from Mali and she goes on stage and people just walk on stage and throw bundles of money at her. Sounds like a good deal. They're getting well rewarded.