BIO (uk)

MORIKE KEITA aka Mo DJ

For some time now it has been impossible to avoid having one’s attention grabbed by remixes of African music, particularly Malian, over the airwaves of the capital city, Bamako.

In a journey to meet the author of these electronic forms, we take you to Sokonigo bus station and, in there, a small cassette booth. Here you meet Moriké Keita, booth seller by day and DJ in the Bamakan clubs by night.

He is one of the first to have remixed music from Africa. With the means at his disposal and, in particular, with his little drum machine (« The Djembeni ») he has spearheaded the stule of music that has derived its name from that instrument.

Moriké Keita, a.k.a. DJ Mo, was born on the 26^th April 1975 in Bamako, Mali. He began his DJ career in the scrub lands on the way to school and mixing with a double tape deck in the parties of this neighbourhood: Le Badalien in Bamako.

It was his older brother, traveller and music lover, who brought him back the popular cassettes at the time of Abidjan and Brazzaville. It is the era of Zogazi, of the Mapouka and of Zougloumania. Mo is influenced by DJ Jean Paul Zen, a Ghanian immigrant on the Ivory Coast.

His popularity rapidly increases in Bamako and the owner of the Batama Club offers to come and work with him. At first Moriké declines the invitation as his limited experience to that point led him to feeling overwhelmed by the equipment at the club. He does, however, seize the opportunity very quickly.

It is therefore at the Batama Club that Mo begins to mix on a large sound system, working to combine Mapouka with Techno. He quickly concludes that he needs a drum machine in order to create his own grooves and also to compensate for the dynamic loss of successive tape to tape dubbing.

So he simply says to the owner of the Batama, « With a drum machine, we will make people danse more, we will have a better sound and we will have more customers! » This final argument convinces the owner who then invested in adding a Roland-Boss DR660 to its collection.

This is a very basic instrument filled with classic sounds, such as famous drum rolls, snare drums, claps and whistles. However, basic as it was, it made all the difference with other clubs. Most of these were happy to work with cassettes. The Batama Club, however, was « doing its own thing. »

In this his first laboratory, Mo begins to research from dawn until dusk both artistically and technically. Aggrieved by the fact that Malian music was being snubbed by the clubbers of Bamako, he decided to mix a loop of a dance hit with a popular Malian song that spoke of the adventures of a Malian Don Juan. Such was the impact of this mix that people almost literally went crazy for it. Mo had goosebumps.

Mo wants to free himself from the imposing sound of the Ivory Coast. He wants to created a more personal groove. The simple and classic drum machine playing over the sound of the CD creates something new and there is talk of the « The Djembeni » everywhere in Bamako.

And then the time came when Mo DJ would associate himself with his friend at the SB boutique, a cassette seller who had an interest in DJ’ing. This associate knew that Moriké would be the ideal operator of all the machines he had just ordered. Most of the work involved transferring cassettes to CDs but this access to such a vast array of music gave Moriké new ideas. He therefore passed whole afternoons at the bus station preparing remixes for his evening session at the Batama.

Bamakan artists called upon Mo DJ more and more. Everyone wants a « Djembeni » version of their latest song. For four years, Mo DJ remixed the vast majority of young Malian talent, and his remixes stretch further afield to include stars of Congolese music such as Papa Wemba and Koffi Olomidé.

His remix for Alou Sangaré, although created with simple means, creates a storm in the dance scene as well as on the radio. At the stalls and in the market, everyone asks for their preferred artists mixed with « The Djembeni »!

It is at this moment that problems begin to arise. Many producers take a dim view on Mo DJ’s activities and see it as a form of piracy. And yet, as Mo DJ says, « …My aim is to make people dance and have a good time…that’s all. »

Ironically, mixes sold at the bus station to long-distance HGV drivers were finding their ways to markets without Mo DJ being aware of it. Moriké, accused of piracy, is pirated. As he enjoys saying, he is the pirated pirate.

Moriké then crossed paths with Amadou and Mariam, and they open to gates to Europe. He arrives in France in 2005 to participate in the launch of the album « Dimance a Bamako » on which he remixed three tracks.

Since then, Mo DJ has remixed such artists as K’naan, Ba Cissoko, Tiken Jay Fakoly and Vieux Farka Touré. He has also remixed Anglophone artists such as Neneh Cherry, Franz Ferdinand or Fires of Rome. He has also just remixed « Amessetou », a track from the latest album from Matthieu Chedid better known as -M-.

Mo DJ’s first album is now ready to see the light of day. It is ready to surprise, to energise and stimulate dance floors the world over.

Mo DJ is now part of the collective, Africa Express, put together by Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) and with whom he mixed at Glastonbury Festival, Liverpool and London.