Moytou
Batch Gueye (44 mins)
It’s a bad portent for an album when, about 12 seconds into the first song, there’s a clear and audible ‘watermark’ for a beat-making website, indicating the use of unlicensed beats on the track. But that’s how Moytou starts. Even leaving aside questions of legality, using someone’s musical work like that without licensing, permission or even a credit is so unethical, unprofessional and – for the listener – deeply weird. It definitely leaves a sour taste, but let’s listen to the rest… it doesn’t get much better, really.
UK-based Senegalese dancer-turned-singer Batch Gueye had a very promising first album, Ndiarigne, back in 2015, and has been a key element of the forward-thinking Afro-futurist jazz group Fofoulah. His solo work has gone downhill since then, though, and Moytou feels like a shadow of what he is capable of. Where that first album managed to alternate between hard-hitting and raw, and delicate and emotional, here, the moods seem to have smoothed out into a middle-of-the-road mbalax-lite.
Gueye is at his best when he surrounds his soulful, high-pitched Wolof vocals around the polyrhythms of sabar and tama drums and guitars, but too often here he falls back on an over-reliance on uninteresting synths, pads and beats. There are some good ideas and impressive singing, but the whole thing is poorly executed, uninspiring and lacking in the fun energy that should be coursing through it all. The track ‘Waye Wi’ stands out as a high point, and gives a glimpse at the quality that could reasonably be expected throughout.
Moytou is a missed opportunity from Gueye – some shining moments amid a generally disappointing album with little to set it apart from the crowd… not to mention some dodgy artistic ethics. Bring the old Batch back!