Baaba Maal

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the musician Baba Maul. He possesses what's been called one of the finest, most distinctive voices to come out of Africa.

Presenter0:37

Yet as a child he was told he couldn't sing, because he hadn't been born into the right kind of family.

Presenter0:43

Now he's among the best known African artists in the West, wowing audiences from the Glastonbury Festival to the Proms.

Presenter0:51

But in his homeland of Senegal he is a superstar, not simply a singer, more a prophet, some one treated with such respect that his views are sought on education, health, and even international politics.

Presenter1:04

In our society we use songs to express what people are feeling, he says. Musicians are closer to society in Africa. We use our voice to say what the people expect from their leaders. Um I'm wondering then, Baba Mal, if that's key for you, that you're able to to give voice to people who are not normally usually heard in the run of things politically.

Baaba Maal1:27

I come from a cultural background where the history play a big role. And we know about history listening to these storytellers who use the music to tell these stories. We learn about our responsibility from the music. If you want to be really well recognized in your society, like a musician, even you have a very beautiful voice and people love you everywhere you come, you have to have something into your lyrics because music it's not just the melodies and the harmonies, it's also the words. You know, this is what stay in the mind of people.

Presenter2:07

We'll talk in more detail about the central role of music in your indigenous culture a little later. Before we go into the the first uh of your musical choices, I want to ask you, as a musician, I think it's always particularly difficult to boil down uh the music that's important to just eight tracks. Did you find it difficult to choose just eight tracks?

Baaba Maal2:23

Did you find it

Baaba Maal2:25

Oh yeah, it was very, very difficult, you know, because I'm a nomad myself, you know, like a nomad, you travel and you discover things, you see things, you appreciate things. So I was traveling, listening to music from uh the all these communities and all the music that I l did listen to, most of them have a big impact on in my mind. So it was very difficult for me to choose and to pick up just eight songs. That's not uh easy.

Presenter2:51

Well, I'm sorry about that, but you've managed to do it. Uh tell me about what's number one on your list today?

Baaba Maal2:52

That would be

Presenter2:56

Yeah.

Baaba Maal2:56

Orchestra Baobab is the one of this first group that really work on the the traditional music because they pick up some of these traditional songs and adapt it to everything that we saw it was coming from the West. When you listen to Orchestra Baobab, you see a lot of uh melodies on and a lot of uh chords that come from Cuban music. And for me at that time it was very like a miracle, you know, to see people using Western instruments, using guitars and uh bass and uh drums like in the west, but uh being able to put together traditional African songs and that's why I pick up this song.

Speaker 34:09

Will my me

Presenter4:10

Orchestra Babab and Booma Meen. So we've talked a little, Baba Mal, about the context of the music and and how you grew up. We'll talk in more detail about that in just a second. But it's important also to let people know about the context in which you perform your music. You are not just a musician who has made a difference on the world stage. You're also a person who is attempting to make a difference through your

Presenter4:33

I suppose we could call it a broadly political profile. You represent Africa and the UN's development program on HIV and AIDS. You're an ambassador for Nelson Mandela's four six six six four campaign. You're involved

Presenter4:46

At the very highest level, at trying to communicate with people in Africa and around the world. How comfortable are you with this political profile?

Baaba Maal4:55

I am very comfortable with that, you know. And I think it's normal because uh

Baaba Maal5:00

If you look at my background, you can understand that uh

Baaba Maal5:04

I am not from a family of musicians.

Baaba Maal5:08

So it was very difficult for me to be a musician. At the north of Senegal, you know, even when you get very famous or very rich or you become someone very important, you are still a part of your community.

Baaba Maal5:21

When I came to the music, I said to myself, I'm doing something a lot of people were doing before.

Baaba Maal5:27

People was always playing traditional African music, usi traditional history, talking about uh uh the community, but they never get this chance to go to school and to and to be able to deal with this music and to travel with it and to get opportunities. So if I have it, I have to change something.

Presenter5:47

And so what about then your your own very early beginnings? You grew up in northern Senegal, it was on the edge of the Senegal River.

Presenter5:54

the other side of which w was the Sahara Desert. And you lived you lived in a very small community. I mean, it was a hundred miles to the nearest big town. Yeah. Tell me about your early life. What what was home life like?

Baaba Maal5:56

And you can

Baaba Maal6:03

Oh, it was really interesting. I think I really got a lot of things when I was young. My father was a fisherman, but at the same time, also he was a musician. He was calling people to come to pray at the mosque. He was a kind of religious musician. My mother was a popular singer. But you know, you can be a popular singer without using it like a profession because you have your work at home, you work in the fields, or you are a fisherman, and in the afternoon, when everything is finished, you can play music. You said your father called people to pray then. He had a beautiful voice? He had a very beautiful voice. I used to wake up early, very early in the morning, by five o'clock in the morning, just to listen to his voice. It's like his voice is going into the savannah. When you listen to this voice, it have a big impact on you.

Presenter6:54

And what about uh the home circumstances then? I I said it was a village and it was a small village. Did you live in a a compound of people? Was it quite communal living or you lived quite separately?

Baaba Maal7:02

My my my family was a vi big family. It's African families are never small families. How many brothers and sisters? From my because my father used to have two wives, two my mother and uh another wife or something like uh fifteen.

Presenter7:09

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Baaba Maal7:18

brothers and sisters in the family and uh the aunts and the uncles and everyone is a kind of uh someone who can give education in his own way to the children. I was very, very lucky because I wanted to know everything and I was using these opportunities to ask everything that I wanted to know about the culture, about the music, about the background, about the history, about the family. I was so curious to know.

Presenter7:46

More in just a moment. For now tell me about your second track. What have you chosen as number two?

Presenter7:51

Bernispere

Baaba Maal7:52

Uh

Presenter7:52

And why have you chosen this track?

Baaba Maal7:54

O lion

Baaba Maal7:55

The lion is an animal that I

Baaba Maal7:59

I'm a bit afraid of, but I have a lot of respect of the lion because, like we say, in Africa, the lion is the king of the continent. When I was very young, I saw lions.

Presenter8:09

Yeah.

Baaba Maal8:11

Just the river. I was playing with the oldest kids near the river, and suddenly we see all the horses and the oldest animals being very nervous. And in the other side of the river, we hear a very strong, deep voice roaring and coming. And then I say, What's going on? and the older boy says, It's the lion. And I was just hypnotized by the fact that I'm gonna see a lion. Suddenly I saw the lion come near the river and have some drink and go back. So I say, Wow, that's that's a lion.

Speaker 38:45

Uh

Speaker 28:45

Who live in the jungle?

Presenter9:11

Burning Spear and Lion. So, Baba Ma, by your um own admission you were a bright child. W were you also quite a serious child?

Baaba Maal9:19

I was not a serious child.

Presenter9:19

I was

Presenter9:20

What

Baaba Maal9:21

What sort of child were you?

Baaba Maal9:23

I tell you I was a very curious child asking questions to everyone who was near me. Uh I am very uh grateful to my father to take me to school. You know, he did the Second World War. He stayed some time in France, and then when he came back, he did recognize that education was very important for the future of his children.

Presenter9:44

And so when you went to school, uh I mean, what did you get out of it? Were you a studious pupil, hard working?

Baaba Maal9:51

It was not very difficult for me to have friends at the school, especially from the teachers, because I was very small, the smallest one in the in the classrooms, but also one of the brightest ones. And at the same time, I was someone who I was not taking uh uh so seriously the education, but at the same time I understand everything that they t teach me. So you wore it quite lightly, you tightened it. Likely, just naturally.

Presenter10:14

Likely just

Presenter10:16

And did y did you have a sense at that point, early on, that that you were going to lead a life that would not simply be confined? You would not be a fisherman, you would not live in the village all the time?

Baaba Maal10:24

Yeah.

Baaba Maal10:26

I I knew it since I was a child. Did you? I surprised myself sometime when I was lying down.

Baaba Maal10:32

And the rest of the family being together, me in at one corner of the house, just thinking, I was always thinking, something is was always going in my mind and thinking, we will stay connected always, everywhere I go, but I knew I don't belong to this family, I belong to something different. I do not know what, because I was very young, but I I could feel it.

Presenter10:56

More about that in a moment, for now tell me about your third track.

Presenter11:00

What is reading?

Presenter11:02

Amen. And why? Why have you chosen this particular Otis Redding track?

Baaba Maal11:06

When I was uh listening to music, what is reading was someone uh that I really

Baaba Maal11:14

See really close to what I know. You know, we have m a lot of melodic instruments in my community, like uh violins, like uh flutes. And his voice was a lot melodic. And this song Amen, since I have a a father who was calling people to come to pray and singing in this religious party, the word Amen.

Baaba Maal11:35

The first time I did hear about it, I say.

Baaba Maal11:39

This is a song I want to listen.

Speaker 311:46

Yeah.

Speaker 311:48

Amen.

Speaker 311:53

Amen Amen.

Speaker 311:57

Amen.

Speaker 312:01

Disney like the mine

Speaker 312:05

I'm gonna

Speaker 312:06

Literally

Presenter12:09

Otis Redding and Amen. So you were, it it seems to me quite a dutiful son, Baba Mal. You went to study law at Dakar, in the big city, but you were

Presenter12:21

Outed as a musician, people started to hear you performing on radio. How how did that happen?

Baaba Maal12:27

I was very good at the school.

Baaba Maal12:30

And uh I was lucky I got it and come to Dakar. I went to the university and I knew that I was a singer and my friends were saying to me, Go to the radio, do some recording, you can be very famous. I started to try to go, but I was afraid that my father, who was believing that I should be someone really important in the society, will be very angry after me. And the first time when he hears me singing songs at the radio, you know, you always recognize the voice of your child.

Baaba Maal13:00

And he called me and said, I know that this song is from you. I say, yes. I take all my courage and say that that's me. Yes, it's me. But the song was talking about reality. It was a very good positive song, talking about the history, the reality there in my community. And he said to me, If you promise me to do songs like this that someone old like me can listen to, I am agree with you to be a musician. And I say, I promise.

Presenter13:29

And tell me, w at what point did you make a friendship with somebody who would be very uh significant in your life, Mansur Seck? When when did when did you meet him?

Baaba Maal13:38

I met uh Mantursek when he was very young. He's a Griot himself. He comes from the families of musicians.

Presenter13:45

Yes, let's just be clear about this. The t the term Griot, these w these are the people in your culture who are known for making music, who are known for music.

Baaba Maal13:51

They are known for making music, they're uh being storytellers. And uh so with your

Baaba Maal13:57

Europe in a sense, allowed to be to be to be a musician is not a problem for you. Uh and I met Manto Segwen, I was very young. His father and my father did know each other when they were very young, so we were connected before the music, you know.

Presenter14:11

And together you went on this sort of musical journey through Senegal. Tell me a little bit about that.

Baaba Maal14:16

I said to myself, if I decide to be a musician, I have to know about African, West African music. So I take Mansur and two other friends and we take the journey because in the traditional way, this journey, everyone who is a professional musician since a long time, they take it since centuries to discover the country because we do not have T V, we don't have radio, we don't have C D's. And you have to travel to go to people who know about it, to listen to them, to wait for them to to give you the chance to understand. If they don't accept you, to understand it, you will never get it.

Presenter14:51

I mean, I I mentioned earlier, of course, that now you've performed at Glastonbury, at the Proms. What about performances in Senegal? How do they differ from performances in the West?

Baaba Maal15:02

You know, in Senegal, because people uh uh think about music like something that belongs to all of them. So when people come to t to a performance, it's not just the musicians who make the concert, who make the ambience, it's the musicians and the public. It can go from eight o'clock in the after dinner till five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock. It can go from all the time. You know, it's uh it's a lot of vibes going on. Tell me about your next piece of music then, track number four. Baby manga. And why have you chosen this? Baby manga is one of these women.

Baaba Maal15:38

who was very famous in the the African

Baaba Maal15:43

Music, because she sing in her own language, she come from Central Africa and put it on a very western

Baaba Maal15:52

Good arrangement of music with horns and drums and electric guitars.

Baaba Maal15:58

And her voice was so loud and so talking to everyone in the continent because that song did get very famous. And I think it's uh one of these melodies when you hear it, you just think about the African continent, you don't think about nowhere else.

Speaker 316:21

Who am I doing?

Speaker 316:27

Now let's tell you what

Speaker 316:33

Amia!

Speaker 316:37

Enjika muña sumo.

Presenter16:42

and Amnia. So, Babomal, you made a decision to study in Paris. What did you make of the city when you first arrived? I'm thinking of uh the weather, of the clothes, of the general kind of very precise and often restrained nature of the culture.

Baaba Maal16:57

The nature of the culture. It was a very big shock, you know, because I was used to take my guitar and to play music any time in any place. I couldn't do that in Paris. Or a way someone will come and knock on your door and say, This is not the time for to to play music and uh just to feel that you're alone because no one talked to you, no one seemed even to look at you. And this is something that you don't know when you grow up, especially in a small uh village in in in in in Africa.

Presenter17:27

And what about the cold? Did you feel the cold?

Baaba Maal17:29

I feel the cold, but I was prepared for the cold. That was that wasn't the worst thing for me. The worst thing is to be alone, to be far away from home, to be far away from my family, and to come from an environment where everything that you live from morning to night was just natural. You do everything naturally, and there everything seemed to be organized, you know.

Presenter17:52

And what about the fact that I mean, of course, when you were a young boy, France had been a colonial power i i in Senegal. How did it feel to be studying in a land that, you know, possibly you associated with not altogether positive domination? Was it was that a strange thing?

Baaba Maal18:05

Strange thing. It was a strange thing. But we had to do it because Paris was the center of uh all the music coming from Africa and a lot of things were happening there.

Presenter18:18

Uh you sang, didn't you, at the two thousand two World Cup when uh France played against Senegal. That must have been quite the moment.

Baaba Maal18:24

That was that was really exceptional. And I was a little bit nervous because I knew France was a very big team. Senegal was a small country. But inside of me, something was saying to me that

Presenter18:30

Yeah.

Baaba Maal18:36

Something great can happen that day.

Presenter18:38

And it did. You beat them. Was it one nil? It did.

Baaba Maal18:39

And it did. It did. It did. And when I come near near the microphone and I sing the song of Senegal and I see the the faces of the players looking at me and I think about how far is the Senegal, this country, and how small Senegal is in this competition,

Baaba Maal18:58

And then later on when we beat France, I say something great did happen.

Presenter19:02

Do you think you played a small part in inspiring the players?

Baaba Maal19:05

I think so. I think so. But I I what what what I knew really is when I went back to my hotel, I slept nearly twelve hours because I was so relieved from that. Tell me about your next choice then, number five.

Baaba Maal19:19

Are we talking about Francis Johnny Holiday? Johnny Holiday Noir Se Noir.

Speaker 319:29

Noir Saint Noir!

Speaker 319:32

In the Apple Squad

Speaker 319:36

Victory Sagri!

Speaker 319:40

Este finio, sameron fou.

Speaker 319:46

J'que la ton amour, et je pertou.

Presenter19:53

Noir se noir, black is black. Um so, Baba Mal, there was a point at which you you had to come back to Senegal because uh your your mother died. Had had she seen anything of your big success?

Baaba Maal20:04

Yeah.

Baaba Maal20:05

She knew about it.

Baaba Maal20:07

She came to see me sometime performing when I was in the big capital of Dakar and uh she can recognize a talent, I think, in me and she knew also that no one can stop me. And uh my mother knew exactly where I'm I was going. But she never saw really the success of Baba Mar.

Presenter20:25

See that shit.

Presenter20:29

But you don't think it would have surprised her. You think that she understood the journey?

Baaba Maal20:32

You would not surprise her.

Baaba Maal20:34

In the early years, my mother did help me even to write some of these songs because she was a popular song or singer in at the village, you know. She knew her boy was.

Presenter20:44

It's gonna be a star.

Presenter20:47

And tell me, what do you think she would have made and indeed your father too of we spoke not just about your role as a musician, but this this significant political role that you have, you know, uh for for the UN and for other organizations. What do you think she would have made of that? More more of a surprise, perhaps?

Baaba Maal21:02

No, she will not be very s surprised of that because she did have a character. She was a very beautiful and open woman, trying to see how she can help people when people have problem near her. And she really liked to see her children doing the same thing. And I think I got that way of being with people from from her.

Presenter21:19

And I think

Presenter21:23

It's a very interesting combination, isn't it? Because uh, as we've heard, you know, you were going to study law and your father had this ambition for you to be to use your words, I think it was somebody important, you know, somebody of significance in Senghalese society, and and here you are combining your love and the ambition almost that your father had for you too, to be somebody of significance.

Baaba Maal21:43

Yes, but I I didn't know exactly what it would be. It's interesting though that music took you there. Yeah, it it's great that music can play that role, especially in Africa. Because it's one of the most important way of communication. Maybe my father didn't know because at that time music couldn't feed someone who was using it like a profession. This is why he was so afraid, he was so anxious for me to be a musician. But now I think if he was alive, he would understand that uh it's great to to take the music to

Presenter21:46

Yeah.

Baaba Maal22:14

Help people to talk to them, to have some use for your community. Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Baaba Maal22:20

Senegal Moriteni.

Baaba Maal22:23

It's from uh a very good friend who died some time ago.

Baaba Maal22:27

A chora player, the chora is a traditional

Baaba Maal22:32

African harp, I can say, is very close to the harp.

Baaba Maal22:36

And uh this is one of the very big classical African songs, and he play did play it very, very well. And uh I was a very big fan of his father.

Baaba Maal22:46

And when I met him first, his father was too old for me to join me in my band. I said if I can get his son to come to play with me, that would be great. And he joined my band and we did great things. I can't forget about him.

Presenter23:27

It's interesting, Baba Mal, that often you have performed at a lot of big significant concerts that have at their centre the role of raising awareness and raising money indeed for Africa and the problems of the African continent, and yet you are not short at criticising often the the organisations and the organisers behind these events. You say too often that in fact African culture seems to be marginalized within the events, that it seems to be Western performers and white performers that play the central role.

Baaba Maal24:01

Yeah, it it's a

Baaba Maal24:04

I think it's not normal when you talk about uh a particular place and the people who live in it, and you don't make them involved. When people come to invest things in Africa-built classrooms or schools or hospitals or any kind of thing, I think people in the continent should be involved at the beginning of the process.

Presenter24:25

Mr. President, you will have heard these arguments before, and they became rather well rehearsed around about the concert live eight, when the organisers would say, Well, you know, we need to get maximum publicity, we need to get maximum audiences to ensure that the maximum amount of funds and awareness are raised, and therefore these are acts that don't have a cross-cultural appeal, and so we won't put them at the heart of our concerts. How would you reply to that?

Presenter24:51

I think it's it's

Baaba Maal24:52

It's not fair to not connect the African people, like I say, because Bono, Bob Geldof, and all these people who are very, very ambitious did something really great to talk about the problems of Africa. But at the same time, I think also they will need to be connected to the Africans. It's not just the big cities where people understand French or English or know what's going on, looking at the T Vs. Most of the people who need this support are in the small villages, and these people don't speak English. They don't speak French. They listen to their culture, they listen to their famous musicians, or writers, or historians, or history tellers who can bring the information back and to make them be involved in the big process. It's interesting.

Presenter25:39

Also, that we call it i in Britain and in the West this thing of donor fatigue, of people saying, We've been asked about this thing again, you know, the problem of Africa. We are asking to donate that that they tend to only see Africa as a problem and not Africa as a continent of great vibrancy and diversity and life and power.

Baaba Maal25:59

We know that Africa is passing through a lot of turbulence, but at the same time it's a great place. Energy is there sleeping and waiting for people to come to wake it up. When you look at the women, for example, the women, the associations of women and the power of women going into politics, into business, into culture, they start to have a power and a positive power for the community. If everyone knows that these things are happening, how to support them, how to support this energy, great things can happen in the continent, you know. What about the monies that are

Presenter26:32

are raised, often huge sums of money that are not available.

Baaba Maal26:35

Yeah.

Baaba Maal26:43

Yes and build the class.

Baaba Maal26:46

Maybe maybe people who reach the money or get the money and bring it to Africa, they should get some advice ho from people who really know where to take the money.

Presenter26:56

You you saw I sound as if you think there is an absolute dissonance here between the people who seem to know in Africa what is significant and the people who are raising the money, that there's not enough of a connection there between the two.

Baaba Maal27:06

I think there is not there is not people doesn't take the time that it need to to start a project and to stay there and to give uh advices to people who handle the project on the ground and to make it grow and to and to keep it and to make it work till till the end because Africa is a big continent, it's a lot of countries, it's a lot of communities, it's come so far. The future of the continent, we should think deeply that it should start.

Speaker 227:27

Uh

Baaba Maal27:35

by the people from the continent to be involved in making it happening.

Presenter27:41

Not passive.

Baaba Maal27:42

yet not passive.

Presenter27:44

Let's take a break for some music, then.

Presenter27:47

We're on number seven now.

Baaba Maal27:49

Uh

Presenter27:49

Mice

Baaba Maal27:50

Davies.

Presenter27:51

Yeah.

Baaba Maal27:51

So what?

Presenter28:54

Miles Davis and so what. You sounded incredibly uh passionate just a moment ago, talking about uh the African continent. Unsurprisingly, I suppose.

Presenter29:04

Are you pessimistic about its future as so many people are, given the epidemic of AIDS and given all the other problems?

Baaba Maal29:10

No, I'm not uh pessimistic. I'm very optimistic because I'm a musician and I travel uh a lot in the African continent and I can uh say that all the people that I met, especially the young generation,

Baaba Maal29:24

When I talk with them I see a kind of energy which is there and they will find their way to make things happen.

Presenter29:32

And what about you? You you spend, as as we've discovered, you know, I I would guess a lot of your time in hotel rooms, travelling the world as a musician, travelling the world as an ambassador for these big causes. Um where do you go to to unwind, to switch off, to reconnect with life?

Baaba Maal29:51

I love to be uh near Dakar, the capital of Senegal. There is a place called uh Tubab Jalau near the ocean because I am a fisherman, you know. Water gives me a lot of strength when I just sit down and uh look at all this water and look at all these boats floating on it and uh the fishermen uh doing their job and uh seeing listening to the time passing and I forget about all the all these problems. Like every human being, you have so many problems in your head and that you and you want to resolve and you need just to go away from it sometime.

Presenter30:27

So sitting looking at the water, that's useful, of course, because you know I'm going to send you to this desert island, papa. You're going to sit alone and have a lot of time to look at the

Speaker 330:35

About the water.

Presenter30:37

Uh

Baaba Maal30:37

I'm not afraid of that because since I was child I was always surrounded by people everywhere I go, playing music, invited in ceremonies or people coming to visit me, talking to me. So if I have some time to spend just on my own in a desert island, it's fine.

Baaba Maal30:54

Tell me about your final track.

Presenter30:55

Yeah.

Baaba Maal30:56

Uh What have you chosen?

Baaba Maal30:57

Bob Marley. Why have you chosen that? The word one love seems to sound for me like the whole world singing together something really positive. One love, they're singing about love. And I think love is the solution of our problems. It reminds me at small

Baaba Maal31:14

Community in a small village people living together by sometime taking time and singing a song together.

Speaker 331:27

Let's get together and be alright.

Speaker 331:33

Hear the children crying Hear the children crying

Speaker 331:39

Saying, give thanks and praise to the Lord, and I will feel alright. Saying, let's get together, hands.

Presenter31:50

Bob Marley and One Love. So we come to the point then when I'm going to gift you um the Bible or the Koran, if you prefer the Koran, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to choose one other book. One other book. One other book. What were your other books?

Baaba Maal32:01

Pornet

Baaba Maal32:03

Book B? My other book will be Co Coup de Pilon, The David Job. It's in French. It's a uh book of poems. Really great book. Uh he's born in France. He never saw Africa. He's half French, half African. But the way that he described Africa is really exceptional.

Presenter32:09

Okay.

Presenter32:24

I see.

Baaba Maal32:24

see myself inside of it.

Presenter32:25

That's your book, then. And we'd like to make life a little more bearable for our castaways and give them a luxury. What luxury will you take with you?

Baaba Maal32:33

Uh

Baaba Maal32:34

Oh, I think good.

Baaba Maal32:37

It would be difficult for me to take an iPod because I when it's discharged I will not uh be able to recharge it. I would have take that. But I will take my guitar, maybe. Okay.

Presenter32:44

Manah

Presenter32:46

Okay.

Baaba Maal32:46

I think a much more sensible l

Presenter32:48

And um if I was to force you to to pick just one record from the eight discs, which one would you take?

Baaba Maal32:48

Yeah.

Presenter32:55

I will take one laugh.

Presenter32:58

Baba Mel, thank you very much for letting us view your desert island discs.

Baaba Maal33:01

Thank you.

Presenter33:09

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.