Mandingo

• Watto Sitta [Celluloid, 1984] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Watto Sitta [Celluloid, 1984]
On his recent Hand Power and his two Mandingo Griot Society albums, all cut for the folk specialists at Flying Fish, Foday Musa Suso went right past me. Was he playing his kora like a poser or a master, watering his tradition down or raising it to a new level? Because I was too ignorant to tell, I soon stopped caring. This Bill Laswell-produced dance record is audibly cruder--just gives the groove its head, with help from Herbie Hancock and even a drum machine as well as Suso's usual sidemen. And thus it makes the most convincing case this side of King Sunny Adé for Afro-American fusion without apologies. B+