Behind the scenes with Bokanté in new video for ‘Fanm’

‘Famn’ which translates as ‘Woman’, is the second track to be made available from the hotly anticipated second album by the band, What Heat.

“Malika wrote this to celebrate the power of women at this really timely moment,” says band leader Michael League, “She’s great at writing songs about social and political issues in ways that are never preachy; this song you want to dance to. I wrote it on oud to take advantage of the percussiveness of this instrument, how funky it is and how much fun it can be to just groove on.”

“Much of the actual percussion comes from the Turkish daf, and we added touches like shoving paper into the acoustic guitars to give them a buzzing sound like a balafon [West African xylophone]. Jamey, André, and Keita swing beautifully from start to finish, like a machine. Roosevelt takes a beautiful dobro solo at the end.”

Bokanté will perform music from the new album with the Metropole Orkest on a limited run of shows in Europe later this month, alongside dates in the US in October.

Stream ‘Fanm’ / Pre-order album