Inspired by an ancient melodic chant from the Lébou people, Taamo combines Senegalese traditional music, contemporary art music and sound design.

Interdisciplinary Artist Lamine Sonko Shares New Single ‘Taamo’. Inspired by an ancient melodic chant from the Lébou people, Taamo combines Senegalese traditional music, contemporary art music and sound design.

Five years ago, musician and artist Lamine Sonko embarked on a research project with the Guewel elders of Dakar, Senegal to explore how ancient knowledge is embedded in traditional rhythms, melodies, and songs. His new single ‘Taamo’ is one of the many creative outcomes of this process. Taamo is characterized by cyclical rhythms and melodies played by kora and strings, and the hypnotic ancient melody and vocal chants induce a trance-like state in the listener. Recorded in Naarm and Senegal, Taamo features Anita Quayle and Xani Kolac on cello and violin, Joseph Franklin on bass as well as Guewel elder and musician Doudou Rose Thioune and flautist Issa N’dour.

Sonko’s work draws on traditional African embodied knowledge to create multi-artform experiences inspired by his cultural background as a guewel (cultural role) of the Sing Sing clan and Korings of Kaabu, and a member of the Serer, Wolof and Mandinko cultural communities of Senegal. In 2018 Sonko established 13.12 - an international project bringing together artists, cultural elders, communities and academics to explore how multi-sensory arts experiences, aligned with sacred traditional knowledge can enchant, activate and inspire across artforms. 13.12 is both a research project and a creative project and its name refers to ancient conceptions of the relationship between the sun and moon cycles. This reflects how systems of cosmology and mathematics are embedded in traditional music and dance in Senegal. Through the project’s work, Taamo is informed by these cultural practices and experiments with new ways of bringing traditional polyrhythms into contemporary art music, whilst also incorporating field recordings and soundscapes.

Of the single, Lamine says, “The song is inspired by an ancient melodic chant from the Lébou people of Senegal, sung to invoke the water spirit Mame Latir. It is a ritual ceremony to open the gateways to the spheres of raabyi (spiritual deities). We dance, sing and play sacred rhythms to access the healing powers in their waters. I was also inspired by the beautiful melodic cycles played on the kora that take you on a trance-like journey back to Soumbédioum - a sacred place where the ritual takes place in Dakar. Being in that sacred site you can hear the melody of the chanting echoing back from a small rocky island nearby, where all the water spirits gather.”

'Taamo' is independently released Friday 14th April, 2023.

Audio Production: Thomas 'Soup' Campbell
Produced by: 13.12