A snippet of an interview with Malian singer Salif Keita, playing at Harbourfront tonight:

Keita, 56, recalls listening to James Brown's 1962 Live at the Apollo album "over and over -- I didn't even try to understand the words, just the sounds," he says with the intermittent aid of a French translator, on the phone from a tour stop in Washington, D.C.

Asked if the roots of Brown's locomotive funk and pining ballads seemed African to African ears, Keita doesn't hesitate with his reply, in hearty English: "Of course!"

(Thanks, Don!)