Name: Mamadou L Diao aka Tukkiman

Nationality: Senegalese  
Current release: Tukkiman's new album On the Afro is out now.

If you enjoyed this interview with Tukkiman and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started in 2005. I dropped out of college and made music my goal.

Growing up, I listened to so many genres, but BOB Marley and U2 were my favorites. My early influence was SNOOP DOG and FELA Kuti. Since I was a kid, I have loved the sound. I wanted to see if that sound was actually inside the radio. So when I was six, I opened my dads' radio to check. He was very mad ...

When all the sounds become one it becomes music - and that is why I love it.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects, and colors. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I see a space where I can be, I see a room and a vessel.

I think music has many ways to drive our bodies; the ones I like are the sensual or intimate. Listening always influences our creativity, it opens doors and allows continuation.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Adapting is very important. The music environment changes very fast now.  Finding a way to remain the same is very challenging, I'm an independent artist which means you have to do twice as much as a signed artist.

My interest is always to deliver good music and make people feel good.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I'm from Senegal, a beautiful country in West Africa submerged in the Atlantic Ocean. Growing up staring at the ocean and the horizon would make me wonder what was on the other side.

We have lots of percussions, my favorite is the Assiko, I played it growing up, and it is very present in my music. That rhythm is liberating.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I call myself a "coffee-zombie" so my day starts with coffee then I just sit down to center my energy which can take some time, a phone call to my manager, shower, and boom, the studio which is in my basement. The place where time doesn't exist anymore.

I’m learning some discipline so I can stop and go to the gym.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Inspiration is like gold. Sometimes you find an abundant mine, sometimes you have to dig more.

I am guided by the music, once I have a chord progression, melodies and words will just fall from heaven. I am lucky that I know how to arrange, produce, record, and mix from scratch. That is not given to lots of artists.

I don't take it for granted. I have to keep learning new techniques all the time. I have to feel nervous before a live performance. If not, I have a feeling that it's not going to be a good show.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

That's why I think we have two ears. Just like emotions can be solitary and communal, music has the power to put people together while talking to each other separately. There is one single entity and if there is another we call them a harmony or chord but I like the first one.

Whenever you feel connected with another artist, when you get together the work will be phenomenal. Sharing is key.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

Being the voice for others. When you tell your own stories or anything inspirational and they can relate - there you'll find a purpose.

I never heard the term “essential worker” until Covid hit. The isolation or the deprivation of social activities made us understand the value of music. Music is essential. I think music has many roles, my favorites are JOY and HEALING.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

There are songs I can't play without diving back into my childhood; sometimes they sadden me,no matter how happy the music is. Those are the songs I shared with my best friends I lost when we were young.

Art is a time machine. It takes you to the past. It brings you awareness and makes you imagine the future. And it can do the same with your emotions.

But when create we don't think of that, we are just channeling pure energy.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Science is for me something that is here but not known or not discovered yet. We all have music inside of us, it's organic. Just like science, its form is infinite and there are so many things to be discovered.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

When it comes to making music I am 4 different people. The musician, the engineer, the producer, and the mixing engineer. Each of these hats is a different person. Over the years, I’ve learned to switch from one to the other.

I love cooking and I apply the same process. Quality ingredients matter, and I'm obsessed with results but very patient. I am in a very peaceful place in my life where I think everything is like music.

Anything without harmony in my life is not the right task.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our eardrums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

You should add the heart. Energy, electricity to frequency, we generate and receive and our heart sends translations to our spirit and mind.

At the end of the day, it's just divine. All we need to do is listen, everything is in the air.