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Let’s rewrite the story. Tell other perspectives. Let’s celebrate the overlooked, the outcast, those who knew differently. And when we can, because we should, let’s dance.

“We listen to the ones who fed it / The ones who won and won’t forget it / Let it go,” sings Malika Tirolien on the title track of History, the frankly superb third album by globally-engaged supergroup Bokanté.

History. Nine tracks that tell — with lyrics sung mainly in Tirolien’s Guadeloupean Creole — of outsiders and seers, memories and joy; of black history, global unity and the futility of war. Of taking time to rest, feel, love. Of the redemptive power of music — as a conduit, a change maker, a muse.

“Used positively, in moments of vulnerability music can make us more receptive to messages,” says Michael League, the multi-instrumentalist, composer and (Snarky Puppy) bandleader who formed Bokanté (which means ‘exchange’) in 2016.

“In that sense Bokanté tries to open the listener up to the unique perspectives shared among the group’s members. We are multi-lingual, multicultural and multi-generational but there’s a connection we feel as musicians and people.” A smile. “It’s a really beautiful thing.”

After two acclaimed albums — 2017’s Strange Circles and What Heat, the band’s Grammy-nominated 2018 acoustic collaboration with the Metropole Orkest — and a whole lot of touring, the vibe is stronger than ever.



The blues help. From the get-go, Bokanté have plugged into the blues, tracing the genre’s roots in West Africa and the Arab world through the diaspora into the retro-modern present.

History finds them exploring further, dressing folkloric instruments including the Arabic oud, West African ngoni and North African guembri,.......
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