3MA is a contemporary African music group, consisting of three players of different string instruments: Ballaké Sissoko from

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ma ...

on kora, Driss El Maloumi from

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

on oud and Rajery from

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...

valiha The valiha is a tube zither from Madagascar made from a species of local bamboo; it is considered the " national instrument" of Madagascar. The term is also used to describe a number of related zithers of differing shapes and materials. T ...

. The band takes its name from the first two letters of each member's country of origin in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ''Ma''dagascar, ''Ma''li, and ''Ma''roc.

Artistic career

The idea for an innovative African group of exclusively

string instruments String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

, with no percussion or rhythm section, was born during a first meeting in 2006 in

Agadir Agadir ( ar, أݣادير, ʾagādīr; shi, ⴰⴳⴰⴷⵉⵔ) is a major city in Morocco, on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean near the foot of the Atlas Mountains, just north of the point where the Souss River flows into the ocean, and south ...

, between Moroccan oud player and composer Driss El Maloumi and Rajery, a Madagascan musician using an 18-stringed tubular zither called

. To add a third instrument with an even wider sound range, they imagined that their instruments would be well matched with a kora, the traditional Malian instrument with 21 strings and a large

calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...

as a

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator ...

. A few months later, they met in Madagascar, and Ballaké Sissoko, a leading kora player, joined them for a series of workshops and concerts, sponsored by the local French Institute. In an interview with nonprofit media organization

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, Sissoko said: "I created the chromatic kora with two and half octaves for this project, to dialogue better with other instruments." In his positive review of the group's first album, entitled ''3MA - Madagascar, Mali, Maroc'', British music critic

Charlie Gillett Charles Thomas Gillett (; 20 February 1942 – 17 March 2010) was a British radio presenter, musicologist, and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music. He was particularly noted for his influential book ''The Sound of t ...

called their music ''"satisfyingly unclassifiable''", and world music magazine

Songlines A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal cultures of Australia which mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dre ...

, where the album reached the highest position in its world music charts, qualified the trio's style as ''"African Chamber Music".'' Apart from their own albums, 3MA have also participated in the musical project called '' The Routes of Slavery''. They were invited to join their compositions, relating to the history of the slave trade from Africa, by the artistic director of this recording for audio and video, Jordi Savall, with whom Driss El Maloumi has played the oud on numerous albums. ''Anarouz'' is the trio's second album, published almost ten years after the first recording. Apart from the mainly instrumental pieces, it presents the musicians also singing in their respective languages ( Bambara, Malgache and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Discography

* ''3MA'' (2008), Transglobal World Music Charts in January 2008 * ''Anarouz'' (2017), Songlines Music Awards 2019 *with Jordi Savall and other musicians: ''The Routes of Slavery,'' DVD and 2 CDs with booklet, (2016)

References

External links

3MA official website

Music video of song Anarouz (2017)Video of ''The Routes of Slavery'', with participation of 3MA
{{DEFAULTSORT:3MA World music groups Malian musical groups Moroccan musical groups Malagasy musical groups