Daniel Nelson

How great: a major exhibition, but with music.

One of the first objects on view as you enter

West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song

West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song

Image by British Library

 at the British Library is a variable tension drum, to be held under one arm and beaten with a hooked stick. It’s beautiful.

A few footfalls further is a kora – the very one played by Mali’s Toumani Diabate on his debut album, Kaira. And the West African gods be praised, there’s a set of headphones on which you can listen to the mellifluous sound.

The recordings are part of the pleasure of this show: how can you not enjoy an exhibition in which you can hear Rum and Coca Cola, made famous by the Andrews Sisters but originally recorded by Trinidad’s Lord Invader. The lyrics are different … but that’s an issue for another exhibition.

The music doesn’t quite make up for the lack of a handful of stand-out stunning objects, or indeed for the often uncomfortably low (though I admit not everyone is 6ft) and hard to read captions, which would give the display more cohesion. Nevertheless, there are many delights: a photograph of a griot playing a kora on a quad bike; a drawing of Timbuktu by the first European to reach Timbuktu and return alive (many of the objects are inevitably by Europeans but there’s a useful reminder, that could be given more prominence, that maps, drawings and pictures are not always what is seen but sometimes reflect European views and prejudices; fantastical film of huge plank masks from Burkina Faso; the words of Ignatius Sancho, who was born on a slave ship but became part of England’s literacy scene in the 1700s: “I am Sir an Affrican – with two ffs if you please – and proud to be a country that knows no Politicians – nor Lawyers”; film, in a little room that’s appositely like a shrine, of Fela Kuti singing his incendiary songs; an angry letter in Arabic – “Give me back my book!” – from the 19th century; messages sent in symbols, like the back-to-back cowrie shells that are a rebuke for non-payment of debt;  a saddlebag Koran … the pleasures just keep coming.

But it’s an exhibition where you have to look and read and take your time: if you skim and constantly move to more exciting exhibits you’ll miss the small gems. So though it’s rich in history and forgotten heroes, and comes a reasonably up-to-date “Story Now” section on literature and art, teenagers may need some pointers.

There will be criticisms and omissions in an exhibition that covers 2,000 years, 1,000 languages and now 17 countries, and as in all serious exhibitions in venerable institutions there’s an inevitable flattening, a taming, of the energy, humour, drive, earthiness and love of life that’s so characteristic of the region. Nevertheless, it’s a must-see, as the film advertisements used to say in Kampala.   

And talking of East Africa, the Library is planning similar shows for other African regions, having rightly realised that Africa is too large and diverse to be summed up in a single exhibition.

* West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song is at the British Library, 96 Euston Road, NW1 until 16 February, £10, under 18 free, other concessions available. Info: 01937 546546/ www.bl.uk/west-africa/ boxoffice@bl.uk

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