Interview with Vieux Farka Toure

When the footsteps you’re following in are as big as Ali Farka Toure’s - a guitarist and singer renowned as one of Africa’s greatest artists - you’re bound to encounter a few bumps along the way.
When it’s Toure’s son who’s doing the following - and against his father’s wishes - the bumps can seem like mountains.
Vieux Farka Toure, who makes his local debut Thursday at Johnny D’s, decided to do exactly what his father didn’t want him to do: pursue a life in music.
“As soon as I told my father that I wanted to enroll in Mali’s National Arts Institute in Bamako and become a musician, he came down very hard on me,” Toure said in an e-mail exchange that was translated from French. “He was completely against the idea, and reacted very openly and strongly against it: He stopped paying for my transportation, doing me favors where he used to without question, and so forth.

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