A catchy french-language afro-pop song about where inspiration comes from.
Artists: Lamomali , -M- , Yamê , Fatoumata Diawara , Toumani Diabaté , Balla Diabaté
Album: Lamomali Totem
Tags: pop | mali | french language | French electropop | griot | world music | afro pop | utopian music
Added on: Fri Jul 25 2025
I stumbled on Totem while exploring French-language electropop and the song has stuck near the top of my charts for weeks. The song is just incredibly energetic and really drives forward, with a huge variety of musical textures.
Since then I've been coming back to it and other songs by Franco-Malian music collective Lamomali. Lamomali came about through the combination of French singer-songwriter Matthieu Chedid, griot Toumani Diabaté, and diva Fatoumata Diawara.
The song, from what I can tell by reading the translated-from-French sources is focused on the idea of a griot: a word for a West African storyteller, holder of oral traditions and wandering musician and poet. The collective utopian-pop group includes Diabaté, who is apparently a very renown Kora player.
The song talks about being a griot from a family of griots, how one learns, and the question of the totem, an object that provides a source of inspiration, or--the lyrics ask--is the inspiration from within? 'Am I the totem of myself?'
The song switches around from what sounds like spoken parts by Diabaté, strongly sung parts by individuals and by the group during the chorus, and a whispery tone during some other parts.
I love how the music just moves. It isn't just foot-tapping, it has an acceleration that the beat and mix use to propel me forward.
I'm sure I'm getting some, if not all, wrong about the origin and nature of the song. I'm just trying to scrape together auto-translated texts to understand what's going on. But the music is unmistakably good. The lightweight strings of the kora and the guitar work blend together to make a sound that I keep thinking about after the song ends. Thee are a few great guitar riffs from Chedid that really pop out in successive listens. I really recommend watching their live performance at France Inter Studio 104 to see it all come together! It's wild to see this collection of artists, including featured artist Yamê, also do some truly impressive things with their voices too.
I can't recommend the whole album enough, I've been listening to more and more of this group's music and it's all great, but this song keeps me coming back.
I think there's so much fun new and really invigorating and different experiences out there for me as someone who only speaks English and doesn't get exposed to a lot of non-American music without trying to find it. New instruments, new styles, different topics and ideas, I love encountering these by trying to listen to music outside my normal comfort zone, this track is a great example of why to do that work. As the translation of one line says "It's not AI, it's art."