{He has long supported the nation’s musicians.}<\/p>\n
Damon Albarn has long supported the West African country of Mali. In 2002, he released Mali Music, a collaboration with local musicians. He’s also released two albums (2013’s Maison Des Jeunes and 2015’s In C Mali) with Africa Express, another ongoing collaboration with Mali musicians. <\/p>\n
Earlier this month, he performed in the country at the Festival Acoustik Bamako in Mali, despite a declared state of emergency. In honor of his contributions, Albarn has been given the status of “local king” in Mali, according to a BBC Radio 4 report. Listen to the full report below.<\/p>\n
In addition to his new status, a classroom was named after Albarn and he was given a new Mali name. When asked what the honor means to him, Albarn said, “I’m not used to this sort of thing, but it’s fantastic to see this classroom. And it’s a school dedicated to music and dance. That’s where my heart is, so my heart is here.”<\/p>\n
Albarn’s band Blur released The Magic Whip last year. His last solo record is 2014’s Everyday Robots.<\/p>\n
Source:Pitchfor:[Damon Albarn Made “Local King” in Mali->http:\/\/pitchfork.com\/news\/63671-damon-albarn-made-local-king-in-mali\/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{He has long supported the nation’s musicians.} Damon Albarn has long supported the West African country of Mali. In 2002, he released Mali Music, a collaboration with local musicians. He’s also released two albums (2013’s Maison Des Jeunes and 2015’s In C Mali) with Africa Express, another ongoing collaboration with Mali musicians. Earlier this month, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[100],"byline":[2563],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-africa","byline-pitchfor"],"bylines":[{"id":2563,"name":"Pitchfor","slug":"pitchfor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2563,"name":"Pitchfor","slug":"pitchfor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072345,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23388.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}