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MAMAR KASSEY
Niger calling

Johnny D’s, despite its adventurous programming, remains a strange place to encounter music from distant parts of the globe. Maybe it’s just a holdover from the room’s origins as a country bar, but the huge plates of French fries and nachos, the Red Sox on the TV over the bar, and the odd patch of dance floor in front of the stage give the place a decidedly parochial air. This ain’t no Mudd Club, or even CBGB. This is Somerville, USA. Which is why I spent half my time the evening of Saturday August 20 wondering what it must have looked like to the band on stage, the stellar Nigerian group Mamar Kassey.

Niger is the second poorest nation in the world, and it’s currently suffering from a famine of Biblical proportions, with more than three million people facing starvation. At Johnny D’s, the doors to the kitchen by the side of the stage have swung open, revealing yet another huge serving of something. On stage, bandleader Yacouba Moumouni picks up his wooden flute and leans so close to the mike that the series of notes he plays sound as if they’d been diverted through a fuzzbox. The band — on electric bass, calabash, talking drum, and a two-stringed lute called molo — answer by falling into a furious beat that I can’t count in any time signature. Two dancers, flanking Moumouni, have no such trouble: they are moving in easy, synchronized steps. Moumouni puts down his flute, starts singing with a clear, loud, nasal voice, and every French fry stays on its plate.

Moumouni sang about famine; he also sang about his stolen motorbike. He sang about camels in the desert while he and his dancers moved their necks in camel-like fashion. He sang songs about Niger; and in addition to CDs, the merchandise the band offered between sets included sandals and necklaces. A number of the club’s regulars even got up and boogied. Eventually, the waitress asked if you were "still working on that?" The answer was no, so she got "that" out of your way. The Red Sox lost to the Angels, 4-2. And Mamar Kassey packed up for their next gig.

BY DAMON KRUKOWSKI

Issue Date: September 2 - 8, 2005
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