Vieux Farka Toure

As the son of world music star Ali Farka Toure, Vieux Farka Toure must feel a certain responsibility to the genre and the place of his country, Mali. Recorded in his homeland and completed in Brooklyn, The Secret includes some licks recorded by his father before his death and is studded with the contributions of famous globe-spanning guests, including Dave Matthews, Ivan Neville, Derek Trucks and John Scofield. The Secret takes syncopations and melodies of West Africa into the electric present, morphing tradition at the edges. Parts of his ballad “All the Same” would not sound out of place on a Richard Thompson album.