Boubacar Traore and the late Ali Farka Toure - together in this video playing Malian acoustic guitar blues. Pentatonic scale, desert moods, blackness, the limitless power of the sun. The Bambara language finds expression amidst the riffs and chords, finger licks, the audible gifts. It is good to be Afrikan - to share in a heritage that ranges from the blues to djembe to Afro-beat to soukous and everything in between. This is “Duma Ma Yelema” by Boubacar Traore.

Blues informs hip-hop in a very clear fashion. Listen to Robert Johnson’s track “They’re Red Hot” and you witness that early talking blues spitting. Talking blues are an under-studied science - and by studying talking blues one comes to understand that hip-hop is much older than DJ Kool Herc.

And blues itself emerges from griots singing, in the telling of tales like that of Sundiata by our relatives in the old Mali, Songhai and Ghana empires. Blues tells our stories, plain and simple. It tells our pains and our triumphs. Thus much homage is due to the blues. And the blues must be claimed by Afrikans as something key in our cultural space, and as a historical creation of the global black experience.

Malian masters tell stories again now, in their native tongues, on the salt flats of the Sahel. We must listen well. We can learn a great deal from the rhythm alone, let alone the mood created in the riffs, licks, and language of the desert blues.

Long live Ali Farka Toure.

Talking blues! Talk Blue! Talking blues! Grotto news! Black man sues! My lady died last Tues! Mad Uncle Haqq wants to stalk some Jews! Aunt Manna talks just like she coos! Cuckoos late on paying dues! Pay your dues to the Talking Blues!