About this item

Sons of Mali. Groundbreaking Artists. Refugees. Virtuosos. Survivors. Rock Stars. Unforgettable and undeniable, Songhot Blues represent the future of African rock n’ roll and today they release their third album, "Optimisme", out on Transgressive.

Arguably one of the most successful and exciting bands to emerge from Africa in recent years, they open this set with "Badala", Songhoy for “We Don’t Give a Fuck”. Talking about the track, Aliou from the band said:

When you go out to clubs in Soho, London or New York, you hear hard rock music that can make people move. We wanted to make a rock club crowd get involved with Songhoy Blues. It’s about Songhoy Blues reaching even further than before. We want to see people jumping on a Songhoy Blues track, like they were at a concert. Matt Sweeney said something important the day before we went into the studio. He said ‘We need to make a real Songhoy Blues album. Songhoy Blues stage energy is crazy. Why don’t you put that energy straight in the song?’ That’s what we did.

This 11-song, multilingual album marks a real musical breakthrough. Musically harder, steeped in deep traditions of classic Malian music and desert blues and fused with an urgent and super-charged sound of now, the album was produced by Matt Sweeney of beloved indie rockers Chavez, who’s worked with a host of celebrated artists including Johnny Cash, Run the Jewels, El-P, Cat Power and Will Oldham, and recorded & mixed by Daniel Schlett (The War on Drugs, Modest Mouse, Ghostface Killah) in Brooklyn, NY.

TRACK LISTING

1. Badala
2. Assadja
3. Fey Fey
4. Gabi
5. Barre
6. Pour Toi
7. Bon Bon
8. Worry
9. Korfo
10. Dournia
11. Kouma