She found her groove in Africa

Staging benefit concerts and adopting babies are great, but musician Leni Stern has her own way of spreading the vibration of Africa: She has become an African. The people of Mali have even given the Bavarian-born guitarist and singer-songwriter a little piece of land, because they want her to stay. She's lived there about half-time for more than two years, and she wants everybody to know she's not suffering.

"We all come from Africa; it's the birthplace of humankind," Stern says by phone from the New York City apartment she shares with her husband, guitarist Michael Stern. "When you go there, you feel like you're coming home."

Consequently, she says, "we have a lot of things that we owe Africa, so we try to raise money, and our televisions are filled with images of terrible things.

"Get rid of malaria, for crying out loud, and get some cheap medicine out there," she adds. That's all well and good, "but we have created an impression of Africa, that it's a dangerous place filled with hardship, everybody there is miserable and crying all the time. You have to be vaccinated to the max, you can't drink the water, and you better not step on the ground. Well, you know what? None of that is true.

"It doesn't mean that we have to stop sending money for medicine," she says, "but Africa is beautiful. Africa is fascinating. You have never been among a nicer people. They really make it your quest that you should be happy. The food -- oh my God, the only thing that's a disaster is that I keep gaining pounds."

Stern allied herself with another white person in her new home. Only this one happened to be black.

That would be the renegade Afro-pop singer Salif Keita, an African albino. The blond Stern, who plays at Cafe Metropol downtown tonight, met Keita in Mali while using his studio and soon found herself splitting time between her own music -- influenced by the many months she's spent among Mali's Tuareg tribe -- and Keita's band.

In October, when Stern played on Keita's recording of U2's "One," the odd juxtaposition looked like an alliance of exiles.

Stern left a German acting career in 1977 to become a jazz fusion player in the U.S., later leaving fusion too (and America, really). Keita, born into the aristocracy, bucked tradition to become a lowly musician.

Malians aren't sure how to regard Keita. "They all say he's a sorcerer and has special powers, because they have this belief that albinos are different," Stern says. "And they act around him with a mixture of devotion and hatred. It's a strange situation I have gotten myself into."