The story goes that when a young Lionel Loueke began playing guitar at 16 in Benin, the lack of music stores and training couldn't slow him down a whit. Loueke learned everything by ear, developed a completely unique playing style and once, when playing and breaking a string, replaced it with a bicycle brake cable so he could continue to play.
The Washington Post has a nice profile of Loueke today in advance of a series of shows there.
"There's no need for me to play those traditional grooves from Africa the same way," he said by phone from his home in New Jersey. "We Africans know those grooves, but it's been done. It's the same thing in jazz. I may like bebop and Charlie Parker, but it's been done. Dizzy is dead, and the music has to go to a different place. You should learn some bebop, but you have to take it to another level. Bebop was a product of its time, but now it's a different time that needs a different music.
"The same is true of traditional African music. When I play in Africa today, they're surprised by what I'm doing, because it's not the same groove they're used to. It may still be highlife, but now it's in different meter or in a different harmony. They recognize where it's coming from but they've never heard where it's gone."
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