On November 25, 2021, one of Mauritania's most atypical celebrities, an irreverent, endearing, and very talented musician left us.
In a forthcoming paper, anthropologist Elhadj ould Brahim writes, 'while no official role of a ritual clown exists in Bidan culture, the griot, due to their unique social position and expertise, occasionally assumes this function particularly if they master their recognized craft. With symbolic protection granted by their status, griots can ridicule and desacralize the sacred, performing acts and speaking truths that others cannot. One of the last contemporary figures embodying this bold, humorous tradition was the late griot Baba Ould Nana.
Baba ould Nana was born in 1958 in the Hodh ech Chargui region, in Timbedra, a commercial crossroad linking eastern Mauritania to markets in Mali. When the Oulad Mbarek tribal confederation split apart in the mid 18th century, the conquering Mechdhouf tribe settled in Timbedra. Several of the iggawen (griots) families who had sung the glories of the Oulad Mbarek transferred their loyalty to the Ehel Mhaymid, the ruling family of the Mechdhouf. These musical families produced several of the greatest Mauritanian artists of the last hundred years, including several members of Baba ould Nana's family. His father elBan ould Nana was a master tidinitt player, his mother Vatma mint Awa one of the best voices of her generation, and his maternal uncle Sid Ahmed Bekaye ould Awa perhaps the most esteemed bidan musician of the second half of the twentieth century. Baba was initiated into the tidinitt repertoire by his father, but unlike most iggawen, he didn't spend years apprenticing in the shadow of his relatives, performing with his parents and siblings.
In the early 1970s, elBan ould Nana and his family joined the rural exodus to Nouakchott. They settled in the centre of town, in a house next to the camp de garde. (In 1973, Nouakchott was a city of just under a hundred thousand residents, most of them the families of the first generation of Mauritanian civil servants. These civil servants were almost all French educated and committed to 'modernizing' Mauritania.) Baba was inspired by the multi-cultural and progressive city and especially by the new forms of Mauritanian music he discovered in the capital.
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| Baba's mother Vatma mint Awa and father elBane ould Nana |
Hadrami ould Meidah told me the story of Baba's audition with the Orchestre Nationale de Mauritanie, "one day the minister of youth called and told me that he was sending over someone who wanted to try out for the orchestra. Soon after an adorable teenage Baba ould Nana showed up. I called the band together and counted off a modern arrangement of a traditional melody. Baba took the microphone but couldn't find the rhythm. He told me he would be back once he found his heart." Baba never did find the courage to return to the Orchestra Nationale de Mauritania but he did start regularly sitting in with the 'modern' bands that performed at the few night spots around Nouakchott, clubs like the Ardin at the Hotel Marhaba (today Azalai, the city's first hotel), the Nessim club and the Timiris, both located at the beach. He would sing R&B arrangements of songs like Weidalal Weidalal—composed by Ely ould Eide and recorded by Khalife ould Eide.
Only a few years after Baba settled in Nouakchott, however, this small music scene collapsed as its fragile ecosystem went through dramatic demographic, political, and cultural changes. The acute droughts between 1972 and 1974 pushed thousands of families to the capital city—Nouakchott's population tripled in less than a decade, from an estimated 38,000 residents in 1970 to 134,000 recorded in the 1977 census. This massive influx of nomads brought with them their attachment to traditional bidan culture and their disregard for the cosmopolitan openness of multi-cultural Nouakchott. The Polisario raids on the city in June of 1976 and July of 1977 triggered a political and military crisis. This crisis, in turn, precipitated a military coup in 1978 lead by a generation of young officers who took inspiration from the military regimes of Tripoli, Cairo, and Baghdad, rather than from the Francophone African leaders of Conakry, Dakar, and Abidjan.
In 1980, the military regime, under Mohamed Khouna ould Haidalla, installed sharia law, moving to eliminate alcohol consumption and shutting down nightclubs. The Orchestre Nationale de Mauritanie disbanded, precipitated by the death of guitar player Saly Brahim (in 1978) and the loss of their political support. Around the same time the Ahl Nana, the other leaders of 'modern' music, moved to Libya. Musical performances retreated to weddings and intimate gatherings of friends. Baba, then in his early twenties, was close to military officers of the new regime—several of them were from Timbedra—and for a time continued to explore new musical ideas with the national guard's brass band, not as a performer but as a creative consultant.
Haidalla and his military junta were overthrown on December 12, 1984 by Army Chief of Staff Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya. Within a few years Taya had lifted the most repressive measures of the previous regime. His government, however, did maintain one important restriction. On October 2, 1986 his cabinet banned the import, purchase, and consumption of alcoholic drinks for both Mauritanian and foreign nationals. This decision eliminated alcohol sales in nightclubs, one of the economic foundations of music scenes throughout the world. Ever since, wedding celebrations and invitation-only social gatherings have been the primary ecosystem of bidan music. Baba ould Nana didn't receive patrons in his home, like most iggawen, and was less solicited for intimate performances than his peers but he was a ubiquitous presence at Nouakchott weddings from the late 1980s until his passing. Baba was, uniquely, welcome at all weddings, whether invited by the organizers or not.
Up until the 1970s, when a young couple married in Timbedra, or most any other town or nomadic camp, it was likely that the iggawen invited to perform at their wedding had known them or their family for decades. The iggiw singing the praises of the groom's lineage would be a friend since childhood, someone he had grown up with. The tiggiwit singing the praises of the bride's lineage could have known her mother, aunts, and grandmother for decades. At critical moments during the wedding celebration, they would sing praise poetry, glorifying the legends and achievements of both lineages, poetry that would articulate and confirm the values that bound the community and defined its identity.
By the early 2000s both the nature of these relationships and of wedding performances had changed significantly. The choice of the iggawen invited to perform for most weddings today will still likely be shaped by their historical relationship to the bridal parties' lineages or broader tribe but this bond won't be as strong as it was. In many cases, the iggawen invited to perform will have no generational relationship to the bridal party or their lineages but will have been invited because of their popularity or social media celebrity. Contemporary weddings are less ritual enactments of the web of generational relationships that constitute a community and more theatrical displays of the symbolic capital that families are trying to accumulate and weaponize in the competitive arena of the big city.
Baba simultaneously mocked and legitimized the artifice of Nouakchott weddings. He would appear at the wedding hall, always once the wedding was well underway, push through the crowd and make his way to the group of musicians sitting close to the bridal couple. Sometimes he would take a seat, other times he would immediately ask for the microphone. In either case, before he would turn to address the crowd he would ask one of the other performers for the names of the bride and groom. He would cue the guitar player and percussionists then start to sing, 'Ya Mohamed, throw me some [money], Ya Vatma throw in some more.' He made no pretense of enacting any deeper relationship with the bridal couple or their lineages, no effort to glorify the virtues of their ascendants. And the more outrageously irreverent his exhortations for cash, the more the crowd would roar in approval.
Often he would challenge the invited performers, daring them to sing as well as he could, teasing Dimi mint Abba or Bouyagui ould Nevrou. He would leave fifteen minutes after he arrived, satisfied he couldn't get more money out of the crowd and move on to another wedding.
An appearance by Baba ould Nana eventually became one of the markers of a successful wedding celebration. The more irreverent his performance and the more outrageously his behavior transgressed social norms, the more famous he became and the more he was welcomed at weddings. He wouldn't, however, have been able to sustain this welcome if his musical talent wasn't obvious and appreciated. Baba had a rich voice and a gift for extracting deep emotions, with limited effort, from a musical phrase. His talent and musical inspiration were undeniable, even when he was singing nonsense. Like Tripepe. The song was composed for Baba by a small group of friends that included a renown iggiw. They taught Baba the lyrics and invented a back story introducing the song as a little known traditional melody. Baba started singing the song at weddings, infusing the melody and gibberish lyrics with great feeling, demonstrating that he could generate musical interest out of the shallowest material. As cassette recordings of Baba performing Tripepe started to circulate in the late 1990s they further built his reputation.
Mass media in Mauritania was a state monopoly until a law liberalizing the audiovisual sector passed in the National Assembly on 2 July 2010, with the first private media being authorized by the High Authority for Press and Audiovisual (HAPA) on 23 August 2011. By 2015 there were half a dozen television stations, public and private in Mauritania. All of them struggled to generate sufficient content to fill their broadcast schedules and they soon recognized the appeal of Baba's irreverent charm. Beiba (little Baba), as his fans called him, started to make regular TV appearances, on talk shows, in comedy sketches, or performing with his sister Oumekhty, playing the flippant provocateur to her stern and devout persona. The following short clip is my favorite Beiba appearance. He appears on a live talk show for an interview with the program host interspersed with tidinitt performances. A few minutes into the discussion, Baba's cell phone rings. The program host's reaction to Beiba's behavior expresses the affection so many Mauritanians had for him.
By the end of the decade Nouakchott was on Facebook and soon clips of Baba's most entertaining television appearances were enjoying a social media afterlife. Throughout the last decade of his life, he became as celebrated for his humor and irreverence as for his musical talent, with regular clips spreading across social media of Baba joking with fans on the street. By 2021 his health had started to deteriorate and he was receiving regular treatment for a cardiac condition. On Thursday 25 November 2021 he collapsed at a friend's house in Nouakchott's Ksar neighborhood and passed away the same evening.
There aren't many good recordings of Baba in circulation. Here are the best I have found, they are both solo performances. This first is simply titled 'Baba Khadim' (old cassette of Baba). It features Baba accompanying himself on guitar. He doesn't announce the date or the circumstances of the performance. This recording has already been circulating on YouTube for a few years but, as with so many cassettes of bidan music, these versions are the wrong speed. I have corrected the speed problems.
This second recording is a later and even more relaxed performance of Baba on tidinitt. This cassette captures an intimate evening of music to celebrate the birth of a daughter to ould Jiddou (of the Ideyboussat tribe) and his wife Oumelkheiry (of the Midlich tribe). This cassette is called Boussatiya (simplicity) and is likely from the late 2000s.
I would like to thank Bamba ould Talebna, Bouyagui ould Nevrou, Ahmed ould Barka, Hadrami ould Meidah, Elhadj ould Brahim, and Siham mint Babana for sharing their insights and for all of their help.
(Iggawen is the hassaniya term for griots, plural. An iggiw is a male griot and a tiggiwit a female griotte.)
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