the rix mix

Ali Farka Touré: Born Ali Ibrahim in 1939 in the village of Kanau on the banks of the River Niger in northwest Mali, he never knew his exact date of birth. The tenth son born to parents who claimed noble descent, he was the first to survive infancy and as a child acquired the nickname Farka, meaning donkey and indicating not slow-wittedness but strength and tenacity. When he was still a boy his father died while serving in the French Army and he moved with his mother further south along the river to Niafunk é, the village that, apart from a few years spent in the capital, Bamako, in the 1970s, was his home for the rest of his life.

# posted by Bob : 5:26 PM

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