''Kulanjan'' is a 1999

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blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

artist

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

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Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

an kora-player

Toumani Diabaté Toumani Diabaté ( ; 10 August 1965 – 19 July 2024) was a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he was involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styl ...

. Mahal had first visited Mali in 1979, and the title of the album comes from the track "Kulanjan" from the 1970 album of kora music, ''Ancient Strings'', by Toumani Diabaté's father

Sidiki Diabaté Sidiki Diabaté is a Malian kora player, singer, and music producer born in 1992 in Bamako. He is the son of kora player Toumani Diabaté and grandson of his namesake, Sidiki Diabaté. Diabaté belongs to the 77th generation of musicians in a ...

. Mahal and Toumani Diabaté had first met in 1990, and in 1999, Toumani Diabeté selected six virtuoso Malian musicians and took them to record the album with Mahal in

Athens, Georgia Athens is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Downtown Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta. The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public university and an Research I university, ...

.Ali of Mali: Guitar king of the Sahara
", Salon.com The album was described by ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' as "a rousing set of eclectic grooves, calling on ragtime, barrelhouse blues and even rock'n'roll". ''Kulanjan'' was named album of the year by ''

Folk Roots ''fRoots'' (pronounced "eff-Roots", originally ''Folk Roots'') was a specialist music magazine published in the UK between 1979 and 2019. It specialised in folk and world music, and featured regular compilation downloadable albums, with occas ...

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Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

recommended the album in a survey for the Borders book chain.Grammy-nominated Mali musician gets Obama boost
, sina.com Taj Mahal followed the album with a tour accompanied by West African musicians, linking his American blues sound to traditional West African rhythms and tracing the origins of blues to West Africa, Mahal is also convinced that Mali's Mande griot (musician) clan were his ancestors.Cornwell, Jane (1999)

, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 12 November 1999

Track listing

# "Queen Bee" (Mahal) # "Tunkaranke (The Adventurer)" (Mahal, Diabaté) # "Ol' Georgie Buck" (Mahal) # "Kulanjan (The Long-Crested Hawk-Eagle)" (Diabaté) # "Fanta" (Mahal, Diabaté) # "Guede Man Na (Guede Was Here)" (Diabaté) # "Catfish Blues" (Mahal) # "K'an Ben (Let's Get Together)" (Diabaté) # "Take This Hammer" (Mahal) # "Atlanta Kaira" (Diabaté) # "Mississippi-Mali Blues" (Diabaté) # "Sahara" (Mahal)

References

{{Authority control 1999 albums Taj Mahal (musician) albums Albums produced by Joe Boyd Hannibal Records albums