Fragile solidity could be an oxymoron, but it isn’t when you meet Maah Khoudia Keita (Dakar, 37 years old), a musician of delicate beauty, with wire fingers, firm enough to strike the strings of a bass. It stands out from the crowd for his albinism and her freshness, but, moreover, she is an instrumentalist whose dedication to her art is visible in the bass case she always carries on her shoulder. In 2021, after years spent playing with his brothers in the well-known group Takeifa, he publishes Porta Boul, his first solo single, in which he talks about violence against women.
He’s always trying to learn something new, because he’s been playing pop for 10 years and recognizes that “this doesn’t require the same knowledge as jazz,” the style he embraces today. “TO Observing other musicians, I realized that I had to work harder if I was interested in more complex styles and this led me to train”, he tells EL PAÍS, in Dakar.
In this interview he refers to the attacks he suffered while studying English at university and at discriminations to whom people with albinism face in some African countries. She also works as a model, installing it “moon skin“on the catwalks of Dakar.
Ask. How did this whole adventure in music begin? Guys are usually the eternal owners of the instruments in a band and leave the vocals to the female member.
Answer. My brothers had already chosen other instruments. It was my father who suggested and insisted that I make music, and there was only the bass available. I knew it was a challenge for a girl. I, like all little sisters, wanted to do it like them.
Q. What kind of music did they make?
R. At Takeifa we played very Africanized pop, with percussion from here. After a decade with them, when I was 30, I wanted to evolve, see what I was capable of, what I could produce on my own. When I left I met other musicians who introduced me to jazz.
Q. After college did you dedicate yourself almost exclusively to music?
R. YES. Now I’m working on an album project, for which I already have six songs and with which I’ve made one tour of seven German citiesin 2023. I work with my drummer, a German violinist and a backing vocalist. With my group, Lady Maah Keita, we do jazz fusion with the music of our land. Since I am a Keita, the music of my origins is very Mandinka.
Q. What are your references?
R. Habib Payea Senegalese bassist, who is our symbol. He was able to bring his particular touch, while remaining in tune with his time.
Q. In the most recent Saint Louis Jazz Festivalthe artist Alune Wade invited her to talk about Aminata Fall, an emblematic woman of Senegalese music
R. She invited me to pay homage to her, but above all to talk about the place that women can occupy as instrumentalists and in the evolution of jazz in Senegal. It’s a style that encourages improvisation and leaves room to get to know your instrument better.
Q. Now that your brothers live abroad, do you want to stay in Senegal?
R. For now I don’t think about leaving. But I don’t promise anything, because the style of music we make is easier to ‘sell’ in Europe than here. If there had been the necessary consumption of that type of music in Senegal, I think many artists would have stayed in their country.
Q. You denounced the discrimination suffered by albino women in public life. But in the midst of her solo career, she decided to speak out about the gender-based violence she experienced firsthand. Why?
R. What I experienced at university was more sexual harassment. There was someone following me: for two months he followed me constantly. And I soon learned that this had to do with certain beliefs that some people in Africa have about albinism; for example, that if you have intimate relationships with albino women, you will be lucky with money or recover from diseases. This individual who was chasing me believed in such things and acted like he was in a psycho movie. Before people from other countries talked about these beliefs, I had never heard of them.
There are some beliefs that exist among some African people about albinism; For example, if you have intimate relationships with albino women, you will be lucky with money or recover from diseases.
Q. What situations does your activism focus on in favor of people with albinism?
R. We work for skin health, from an association called Care of albinosof which I am co-founder. Our goal is to prevent skin cancer, raise awareness and facilitate practical issues such as the distribution of sunscreen. Because here the access of albino people to sunscreens is rather limited: they are very expensive for the population and there are no public subsidies.
Q. Do albino people suffer daily discrimination?
R. There are families, for example, who don’t send their albino child to school, they send him to the streets to beg. And when an albino is lucky enough to go to school, he doesn’t immediately integrate with his classmates and his teacher doesn’t pay him the attention he should. In some schools it is thought that albinos are slower because, not seeing well, they need special attention and patience that some teachers do not have.
Here, access to sunscreens by albino people is rather limited: they are very expensive for the population and there are no public subsidies.
Q. Did you suffer at school?
R. No. On the contrary, I was lucky and had good companions, who also lent me theirs notebooks where he can copy what he hasn’t seen on the board. Of course: I almost didn’t go to recess because I was too busy copying, but that way I caught up on the lessons.
Q. Does your modeling career have anything to do with advocating for the visibility of albinos?
R. I wanted to do it. I joined a modeling agency for three years and did fashion shows for Dakar Fashion Week. In fact, at the beginning it wasn’t easy, because they only requested black-skinned models. Then they wanted to cover other types (or colors) of skin and I was able to enter that world.
