ARAT KILO

After the album Visions of Selam in 2018, Arat Kilo is back with Danama. While the group has stuck with their Ethio-jazz roots  in the style of the great Ethiopian masters of the 60s and 70s, their new album
explores new horizons by borrowing from the frantic rhythms of Newark’s Jersey club, English 2-step or New Orleans brass bands. We return to the powerful dialogue between Mamani Keita’s words of hope and the social critique of American MC and poet Mike Ladd. In all 12 tracks mixed by Mathieu ‘Gib’ Gibert – one of French band La Fine Équipe’s beatmakers.

The album opens with Nahel, a tribute to Nahel Merzouk, the French-Algerian teenager shot dead at 17, point-blank, by a police officer during a traffic stop in Nanterre in the Paris suburbs, in June 2023. Then follows Nbendia, a first single that invites you to relax. The title track, Danama, looks back at five
centuries of organized slavery between Africa, Europe and the United States, and at what remains of this colonial ideology right up to Gaza in flames.

The result of this musical journey is a true lesson in life, inviting us to relearn how to stick together. It is linked to a broader reflection on trust in oneself, in others, and in one’s word, but also on the hope of
desirable futures in a contemporary world plagued by crises and individualism. In this context, Danama, the Bambara word from Mali meaning “trustworthy”, takes on its full meaning.