Tag Archives: Desert Blues

Oumou Sangare can be an internationally renowned award-winning singer, composer, business pioneer, and activist who champions women’s rights in her local Mali and throughout Africa. Sangare’s design is wassalou, a favorite musical genre produced from folk customs within the rural southwestern area of the nation; that design has taken her …

Manfila was created right into a jali family members and played balafon and electric guitar as a kid. He became a member of Les Ballets Africains, transferred to Bamako through the ’60s and became a member of the Rail Music group, which highlighted Salif Keita and Mory Kante at that …

With her gutsy, neo-traditional vocals set to a distinctive mixture of didai, sigui, and sogonikun dance rhythms, Sali Sidibe is among Mali’s greatest vocalists. Documenting her 1st singles within the ’60s, she helped to place the building blocks for the Wassoulou music from the ’80s. Based on RootsWorld, “An assortment …

Dimi Mint Abba was created in Mauritania in 1958 to a family group of music artists. Her mom was a percussionist, while her dad had constructed Mauritania’s nationwide anthem in 1960 following the nation had attained its self-reliance from France. As a kid she sung on her behalf parents, so …

Corey Harris has earned substantial critical acclaim among the few modern bluesmen in a position to route the natural, direct feelings of acoustic Delta blues without approaching off as an authenticity-obsessed historian. Although he’s amply trained in the first background of blues acoustic guitar, he’s no well-mannered preservationist, combining a …

Boubacar Traoré has truly gone from getting the tone of voice of Mali to obscurity, and bounced back again to become an internationally respected vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter — overall, not a poor career arc. Given birth to in Kayes, within the sandy western of Mali, his enthusiasm as a …

Khaled may be the poster boy for the present day type of Algerian desert blues referred to as Raï. Certainly he’s been its many successful contemporary exponent, the first ever to find success over the worldwide stage. Blessed Khalidu Hajji Brahim in Oran, the original middle of Raï, he was …

A superstar in his local Senegal, religious pop singer Baaba Maal had not been even born to be always a performer — in Western African culture, custom dictates how the ancient griot caste must make the singers and storytellers, and Maal was created in the town of Podor in 1953 …

The 21-stringed kora continues to be transformed right into a contemporary vehicle of expression by Gambia-born Tata Dindin (born Ebraima Jobarteh). The oldest kid of important kora participant Malamini Jobarteh, as well as the sibling of contemporary kora participant Pa Bobo, Dindin provides continued to construct on his family’s legacy. …

Probably one of the most internationally successful Western African musicians from the ’90s, Ali Farka Touré was referred to as “the African John Lee Hooker” thus many times it probably started to grate on both Touré’s and Hooker’s nerves. There’s a large amount of truth towards the assessment, however, and …