Sidiki Dembélé
The Hub 6/8/24
Two small African drums huddle together on a heap of Persian rugs in the middle of this lofty old Scottish church; but they surely feel at home, for the walls nowadays are panelled in vibrant African motifs, the ribs of vaulting picked out in rich reds, greens, orange and blues. Tonight, discreet filters of giraffe skin and foliage play across floor and ceiling.
Dembélé begins chanting from beyond the shadows, emerging to pace solemnly towards his place behind the dome of the calabash drum. That consists simply of an upturned half gourd, with all its own unique shape and resonance, but Dembélé knows every inch, calling from it with his bare hands an astonishing array of pitch and timbre to create his song, culminating in a barrage of raps and clicks which carried me straight back to my previous evening with Daniel Martinez’ flamenco dancers. But much faster. It brings new meaning to the notion of drumming one’s fingers.
For his third number Sidiki moves to his most beloved instrument, the goblet drum djembe. This incorporates skin and calculated shaping. The name means ‘united in peace’ and as such is a perfect fit for EIF’s theme this year of ‘Rituals that unite us’. The instrument is understood to encompass four spirits working in harmony: that of the tree that gave its wood; that of its wood-carver; that of the goat that gave its skin; that of the musician. This creates great power. Power certainly flows under the hands of Sidiki. He and instrument fit together and astonish the listeners with their symbiotic energy and expressiveness. His voice occasionally plunges into a deep sonority on the edges of Tibetan throat singing.
Perhaps I make this sound like a display of virtuosity, but it is the opposite of display. Sidiki, his voice and his drum are living this music, not seeking admirers. Instead, we are allowed inside, invited inside – or you might say ordered onside. Sidiki proves to be hardly the aloof artist. From early on this evening he started training this motley audience to participate in singing responses. We made a sad fist of it at first but were not permitted to falter. By the end of the event we were really quite good, providing two reliable criss-cross clapping rhythms and singing a brace of Mandingo phrases for Sidiki to weave into his finale, a song of festivals. Naturally by this stage, when Sidiki declares it surely impossible not to dance, this typical EIF collection of, mainly, academics, worthies, elderlies and shy foreign visitors leap up and do so with merry abandon.
After a break there was a meet with the artist. He is of a family of hereditary musical griots. Griots emerged from the Mandé, an ancient cultural area covering his own Cote d’Ivoire and other small West African countries. They act as a “voice of the voiceless” and as story-tellers, teachers, advisors and arbiters, also among the powerful. Hence Sidiki’s happy mission to involve, to lure his listeners in to the point where our delight in the music is enriched by becoming a part of it. And he, he says, has real fun.