Senegal’s Baaba Maal returns after years with new album

AMID a changing, modernizing world with climate change threatening his home, Senegalese singer-songwriter and activist Baaba Maal is releasing his first album in seven years, “Being.”

The genre-crossing album, released by Marathon Artists last Friday, is explores those themes and showcases traditional African instruments along with futuristic electronic sounds.

The first single from the record, “Yerimayo Celebration,” is a jubilant, rabble-rousing celebration of Maal’s roots in the small town of Podor in north Senegal, and the fishing community at its heart.

Maal was born into a fisherman class and was expected to follow that career path, but he befriended Mansour Seck, a griot — or traveling storyteller and musician — and was welcomed into his family.

“I never thought I would stay in one place and doing one thing every day in my life. This is why music is a really good opportunity for me to go away, first, like a young