Ali Djibo & l'Orchestre Caravane: Les Pionniers de la Musique Moderne Nigérienne

There doesn't seem to be the interest in African music blogs there was ten years ago, when I first started blogging.  Interest in music blogs altogether has perhaps dwindled, their novelty sapped by streaming services.  Despite the oft repeated conviction that 'you can find everything on the internet now', most of the African musics that I cherish remain outside of the webstream, unavailable on streaming platforms or from download services.  A lot of these musics are increasingly available on YouTube, but most often you find crappy dubs with no contextual information.  One of my primary motivations for maintaining this site is to generate some visibility, however modest, for some of these artists.  Artists like Ali Djibo of Niger.

Ali Djibo was born on March 9, 1949, in Birni-N'Konni, in the Tahoua region of Niger.  His father was a civil servant and his job moved the family around Niger.  Ali joined his first musical group, l'Amicale de Niamey in 1972, a few years after finishing high school.  Two years later, during the 1974 summer holiday, a group of students from the Ecole Normale de Zinder, formed Les Ambassadeurs du Sahel.  Ali Djibo was the group's most gifted singer and composer.  Les Ambassadeurs split in 1976, with Ali Djibo starting l'Orchestre Caravane and Taya Kazelma the Taya International de la Capitale. 

With l'Orchestre Caravane, Ali Djibo changed the direction of Nigerien music.  He was the first bandleader to create modern arrangements of traditional Hausa and Djerma melodies and rhythms.  All his previous groups had performed covers of variété, West African, Latin American, European, and North American hits.  The Orchestre Caravane stayed together for over 10 years.  The band rarely played the Niamey bar circuit and never released an LP or cassette (at the time, Nigerien groups travelled mostly to Nigeria and Cote D'Ivoire to record).  L'Orchestre Caravane organized concerts in Niamey, made a few tours of Niger, and performed on Radio la Voix du Sahel, the national radio.  Most of the band were civil servants, Ali Djibo worked at the Ministry of Communication and lead guitar player Abdelkrim Ben Mohamed had a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and led a research institute at the Université de Niamey. 

Ali Djibo passed away in 2007.

His only recorded legacy are the performances that were captured by the national radio.  This cassette features 8 of Ali Djibo's most loved songs, including several of his electric guitar band arrangements of traditional Hausa songs.  These tracks were recorded by La Radio Voix du Sahel, probably in the early 1980s.  The most famous of these is Mougoun Magani, a slow soulful interpretation of a well known song by the traditional Hausa singer Dan Gourmou of Tahoua.  Ali Djibo tells the story of a drunkard whose life was swept away by the bottle, channeling the spirit of Sam Cooke and Percy Sledge.  Bodo is another traditional song that tells the story of a French colonial officer, infamous for forcing villagers to work on labor gangs. Zaman Dirni is the story of a villager who dreams of coming to the city only to discover that life in Niamey is harder than in his village.

Download Ali Djibo & L'Orchestre Caravane

Enjoy!!

Thank you to Ibrahim Paraiso, Ramatou Thiombiano, Phéno B (I like his latest recording, check out the link), and Mr. Rabé for their help!