Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful, confident era after Mali’s independence from France in 1960. In the 1990s, a chance encounter with a French curator brought Sidibé’s work international acclaim. The wider world had been used to seeing a narrow range of images from Africa, so when Sidibé’s work went on show in Western galleries, audiences were stunned by the exuberant world they revealed. In 2022, Manthia Diawara, the Malian filmmaker and professor at New York University, who knew Malick when he was a roving nightlife photographer spoke, to Viv Jones. (Photo: Danser le Twist, 1963 by Malick Sidibé. Credit: Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris)

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the BBC World Service, and now witness history with me, Viv Jones.
0:15.0	Today I'm taking you back to the swinging 60s and 70s, not to London Paris on New York,
0:20.8	but to Marley.
0:22.2	The West African nation had just gained its independence from France, and youth in the capital of Amaco
0:27.0	were enjoying new freedoms, partying all night to a soundtrack of soul, rock and roll,
0:32.8	and Marley in part.
0:34.4	This confident era was captured by photographer Malik Sidibe, decades later his electrifying
0:40.4	black and white party photos would reveal an unseen Africa to the wider world, and establish
0:45.5	him as one of the continent's most celebrated artists.
0:51.3	In every photograph, if you listen carefully, you can hear the music, you can see the movement
0:56.8	that the person is doing, the Bougaloo, the funky chicken, or the jerk, the mashed potato,
1:04.6	he really captured the rhythm.
1:07.6	Sidibe died in 2016.
1:10.0	I've been talking to someone who knew him, Marley and filmmaker and academic Manchia
1:14.3	Jawara.
1:15.3	What was he like as a person?
1:17.4	He was considered a decent man, always laughing, even when he's not laughing, the way he
1:23.3	is, if I outy think Malik is laughing, Malik is always happy.
1:27.8	Manchia was photographed by Sidibe several times in the late 60s, early 70s.
1:32.8	Back then, all the youth of Amaco wanted Sidibe to take pictures at their parties.
1:37.8	Tell me something about those images, what do they show?
1:40.6	Young man in bell-button pants, in big belt, in flower shirts, like the Beatles, platform
	...

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