Ali Farka Touré (Mali)
In the early eighties, Cora Connection's founder David Gilden was tuned into Gabon's famed short-wave station Africa Number 1, when through the radio static drifted in a faraway, haunting sound. With out realizing it, Dave had heard for the first time West Africa's answer to the American blues, guitarist and singer Ali Farka Touré.
Dave didn't know the artist, but he'd never forget the sound. The sonic backdrop of percussive calabash clicking and rhythmic bass thumps and a vocal chorus, all backing a lead vocalist who sang while playing sparse blues-like riffs on his acoustic guitar to produce a deep, earthy groove that was mesmerizing and hypnotic.

Years later, Dave put the story together when he got his hands on an old recording of Ali’s music, Sonodisc CD5558, which unfortunately is out of print these days. During the mid seventies Ali had been recording in Bamako and sending the tapes off to France. This was one of those sessions. Incidentally, Ali was quite bitter about the fact that he never saw all the money owed to him from those tapes. The Sonodisc experience nearly dissuaded him from continuing as a professional musician.(coraconnection.com)

Alpha Oulare
Alpha Oulare was born in Faranah from an original Mandingo family in Guinea Conakry and comes from the generation of the seventies.
He started playing drum at the age of 5.
He describes himself: "I saw the Djembé in a dream after I had left a cultural place where I had met Ma Siré Camara. I was 10 years old and I said to him that I love the music, then he told, come with me.” “I studied with him for 5 years and soon became a member of his ballet. Afterwards I joined the group Kounkouré Bamba. At first, I accompanied and later became a solo Djembé player..."
"I then met Famoudou Konaté and Mamady Keita. We also played with Faduba Oulare and his Ensemble in numerous traditional festivals all over Guinea."

"The Djembé will make you suffer, but it can show you the way to obtain knowledge of nature. To learn the Djembé I suffered a lot, but today I thank God, because of the Djembé I am well known in Africa and Europe."
"You have to always play the Djembé to get a new spirit". When I am asleep, the Djembé is in my dreams, Djembé playing is in my blood, I will keep on playing 'till the end of my life."
Presenting the group SUGÉ Berlin 2000 at the beginning of the new millennium Alpha Oulare had the idea to form the group SUGÉ, his idea was to form a group that could express the traditional music of Guinea, with songs from the mandingo and sousou traditions.

Sugé is a tree which you can find all over Guinea. It is also known as the tree of life. It has a fruit which is popular in Guinea because it gives a lot of power. This is why Sugé represents the positive influence that comes out of nature. Sugé is also the name of an old Guinean song expressing the necessity of protection against negative things that happen in life, like today in this century: racism, violence, war, illness...! Sugé, is the new generation of Guineans who expresses the traditional mandingo, sousou and Griot music mixed with their own new style.
(Gamton Records)

Argile feat. Aicha Kouyate
Originally organized by German flute player Dieter Weberpals and Malian n'goni and djembe player Barry Sangare for a single German tour in 1988, the intercultural performances were so successful that further tours soon followed. Their first CD “Koko” was published in 1991, followed by invitations to play in France, Austria, Switzerland and Poland.

In 1995 their second CD, Idjo, was included on European World Music Charts best presentations of the year and led to their performing in other European countries including Italy and Spain.

In 1997 Argile toured West Africa, together with a camera crew, culminating in a report for German television following their tour. The title song on the CD “Idjo” played daily on Ivory Coast's national radio station for over a year.
Returning to Europe, Argile invited the well-known Guinean singer Sona Tata Conde to accompany them on their tour in Germany.

In 1998 they recorded the CD “Live in Africa and Europe” which also documents Argile's first meeting with Sona Diabate.
Since 1998 Argile has played more than 200 concerts in Europe with Aicha Kouyate, dancer Ramata Conde and djembe player Kassoum Traore (below). Special guests have included such African greats as Oumou Sangare, Famoudou Konate, Soungalo Coulibaly, El Houssaine Kili, and Farafina.

In the spring of 2000, after spending a year and a half in Guinea, Sona Diabate proposed Argile's producing and arranging her new songs and accompanying her on her tour through Europe.
In October 2000 the CD Mandingo Festival was published with new songs from Sona Diabate, Aicha Kouyate, Famoudou Konate and the participation of many other African stars such as Djanka Diabate, one of Salif Keita's and Mory Kante's singers, as well as Lenke Conde and Sayon Diabate.
(bibiafrica.de)

Ayo Nelson-Homiah
Ayo Nelson-Homiah was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and raised in The Gambia.
He, like many African children discovered his deeply rooted addiction to music very early; he actually started playing drums he built himself from empty tins and card board boxes.

1980 he joined the "Royal Air Force" which brought him to Berlin in 1994.
In 1995 he started busking in the streets of Berlin and met lots of artist from many countries.
In 1995 he was one of the founders of the AfroCarib Percussion group "Maglaria". The group performed in most of the local clubs.

In 1996 Ayo was one of the founders of the African Trance Percussion group "Senegambigha", the group consists of 6 artists / musicians from the countries Senegal, Gambia and Ghana. They are one of the most famous percussion groups in Northern Germany, maybe even the whole of Germany. They are also known in Berlin’s local clubs and many other German cities for getting the dance floor quickly filled, as quick as lightning flash.

The musicians Mohamed Diafoune (Senegal), Ayo Nelson-Homiah (Gambia), Emmanuel Domprey (Ghana ), Gordon Odametey (Ghana), Ibrahim Alhado (Ghana), Omar Jobe (Senegal) are specialised in many different traditional instruments.
The style of music played is, of course, traditional including vocals. We perform with instruments such as Djembe, Doundoumba, Kpalago, Seourouba, Talking Drum, Bougarabou, Flute, Maracas, Balafon, Water Drum and Mouth organ, to mention a few. The combination of the instruments played attracts the audience to invade the dance floor, and that is always a must.

In 1996 Ayo released his first solo CD titled "HeartBeat"!! ( hull buyh dorr ) which had grooves from Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria in it.
(Gamton Records)

Cheikh Lô (Senegal)
When Senegalese singer Cheikh Lô was growing up in Burkina Faso, his father, a successful jeweler, used to put many strangers up in their house. "There were Toucouleur there," Lô recalls. "There were Malians passing through. Every day, people came and people went.. Sometimes, there were thirty people in our home."

Maybe that's where Lô learned the easy openness that critics keep noting in his music. Lô's debut international recording, Né La Thiass (Nonesuch/World Circuit), is just now being released in the U.S., but last year, a chorus of European writers declared it world music album of the year, and celebrated Lô as the next major star to emerge from Africa. Time after time, they observed that Lô begins with the mbalax sound that put Senegalese pop on the map, but then spirits in bits of Latin music, Congolese rumba, and other flavors harder to pin down. Disparate elements settle in together as comfortably as strangers welcomed into a warm, family household.

"Well, any music that makes me feel good is good for me," Lô told me over the phone from a hotel in Germany, where he was out on tour with his 8-piece band this summer. I was asking about his avowed affection for Zairean (Congolese) music, often pooh-poohed as superficial by West African musicians. "The Zaireans have their own conception of music-lots of melody and lots of rhythm," Lô explained. "I know musicians in Senegal who say, 'Oh, Zairean music. Da, da, da, da, da.' But I never say that. Because if you think that way, you won't be open to music. And openness is necessary for cultural change."

Openness comes as second nature for Lô, and that easy touch may be his real edge, for he's certainly not the first guy to have the idea of blending mbalax and Latin music. Mbalax itself has roots in the Afro-Cuban sound that was widely imitated in Senegal from the '40s through the '70s. Some say the Senegalese had the steamiest Latin music love affair going in Africa. More recently, the Africando project has joined Senegalese singers with New York Latin players to create new, '90s versions of the blend, and Africando's success has inspired bands and singers back in Dakar to repeat the formula there. The difference is, with Lô, nothing ever sounds like a formula.

Take "Boul de Tagale," the lead track on Né La Thiass. From the top, acoustic guitars strum out a clave-like rhythm while a flute adds a lazy little melody-it could be from some '60s lounge tune. Lô steps right up to the mic with his clear, brittle voice. He builds fabulously, and behind him, other acoustic guitar parts break out playing funky, off-beat melodies you might hear in a Malian pop song. Occasional cracklings of sabar drumming announce the mbalax element, and the song unfolds with a momentum all its own, growing denser and denser, until the weave of feather-light sounds come together like wind, and the groove turns miraculously, inexplicably, very heavy.

"In general, African singers tend to have one main style." That's Senegal's biggest superstar Youssou N'Dour, who produced "Né La Thiass." "Ali Farka is Sonray blues, Baaba Maal is the sound of Foura Toro, Youssou N'Dour is Wolof Mbalax. But Cheikh, he can be all of these." Not long after he said this to England's Folk Roots Magazine last year, N'Dour toured in Europe, and he brought along Cheikh Lô as his opening act. These were Lô's first European performances.
"During the tour," he told me, "we rehearsed in the hotels, with just two acoustic guitars. So at the end of the tour in Belgium, Youssou went into the studio and he said, 'Okay, I'm going to make an acoustic record.'" The record N'Dour made, Lii!, is plainly influenced by the lighter, more naturalistic sound he had helped Lô to realize. The Senegalese public swooned. Those who feel that N'Dour has let his music drift too far in the direction of slick international pop were especially delighted. But the sound of Lii! is neither a return to Youssou's roots, nor a plain imitation Lô's efforts. It is the very thing that African pop admirers are finding harder and harder to come by these days: progress.

It remains to be seen whether N'Dour will release Lii! to the world-so far it is available only as an import, and not easy to find-but based on the success Lô is now having, he should. In the larger scheme of things, the quieter groups are African music's cutting edge these days, from the incorruptible roots music of Cesaria Evora and Oumou Sangare to the more calculated folk rock crossovers of Wassis Diop and Lôkua Kanza. But again, though Cheikh Lô may fit the formula, he is certainly not a product of it.(coraconnection.com)

Djelimady Tounkara
Djelimady Tounkara is one of the foremost guitarists in Africa.
Born in the culturally rich town of Kita, east of the Malian capital, Bamako, Djelimady grew up surrounded with traditional music played by members of his family.

The Tounkaras are griots, musicians and historians by birth.
Djelimady played djembe drum and ngoni, a banjo-like lute, as a boy.
When he moved to Mali's capital, Bamako, during the 1960s, he had actually planned to work as a tailor. But music proved a stronger calling. He started playing guitar in a large, government-sponsored neighborhood band, Orchestre Misira. Voted the best guitarist in the band, Djelimady was selected to join the Orchestre National as rhythm guitarist, a great honor for the young player.
The band's solo guitarist in those days was multi-instrumentalist Keletigui Diabate, who is known today as one of the most accomplished balaphone players in West Africa.

Djelimady established himself early on as a guitarist capable of evoking the griot's three major traditional instruments--the ngoni, the balaphone, and the kora--on guitar. From the first time he performed solo on the national radio station, his mastery of tradition and his innovative approach to the guitar were evident to all.

In 1972, the world of Malian popular music went through cataclysmic changes when President Moussa Traore disbanded all of the state-sponsored bands, including both of the groups that had nurtured Djelimady's career up to that point. By then, the man destined to become Mali's greatest pop star, Salif Keita, had co-founded the Rail Band of Bamako, which played regularly at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, next to the city's central train station. But in the great shuffle of 1972, Salif left the Rail Band to form Les Ambassadeurs, and Mory Kante - another Rail Bander bound for international stardom - left his duties as lead guitarist and took Salif's place as lead singer. Filling the void, Djelimady stepped in as the Rail Band's lead guitarist.
In the years since, Djelimady Tounkara's name has become synonymous with the Rail Band. He has seen the band through a quarter century of colorful history and constant change.

The Rail Band's most recent album, Mansa (Indigo/Sterns), was recorded last year in France under the direction of blind keyboardist and producer of many great African records, Jean Phillipe Rykiel. Mansa presents the full variety of the Rail Band's extraordinary repertoire, from deep Malian tradition to flirtations with blues, jazz and Zairean music. In addition, a classic, early recording of the Rail Band with Salif Keita and Mory Kante have just been reissued by Melodie and are available through Cora Connection's music catalog.
Earlier this year, the Super Rail Band, as they are now known, severed its relationship with the national railroad and became in effect a private band. The Rail Band has never played in the United States, but now that the group's career is increasingly directed at the international audience, there is reason to hope that someday they will.

All his adult life, Djelimady has worked to transform his ancestral traditions into dance pop. But at the same time, he has continued to work in more traditional contexts, backing the great griot singers of Mali on records, in concerts and at the day-long wedding and baptism celebrations that are the modern griot's life blood. In recent years, Djelimady has performed in an acoustic trio called Bajourou, accompanied by another masterful griot guitarist, Bouba Sacko, and by singer Lafia Diabate, a veteran of the Rail Band. Bajourou has released one excellent record, Big String Theory (Xenophile), and plans to record another one later this year.
(coraconnection.com)

Gordon Odametey
In the village "Beje wo ahumi" Gordon grew up in the Odametey-family, who is well known for its excellent drumming and dance.
Influenced by his grandfather, a famous herbalist, he recognized early the healing power of special spoken words and drum rhythms, especially the "heartbeat-rhythms".

“The power of the healing rhythms of my music is the power of the elements - water, air, earth and fire - and the power within erotics."

In his younger days he was known in Ghana and West Africa as an excellent drummer. He taught drumming, first to Africans, then also to Europeans in a drumming school outside from Accra, today in Berlin and elsewhere.

Since 1985 Gordon lives in Germany. Here he performed with various groups, for example "No Fears", "Bibiba", "Root B. Tama", "The World Music Orchestra" and "Senegambigha". He founded the group "Ogidi Gidi", with which he toured with "Black Uhuru" and "The Wailers" and performed on TV. He also played with other drummers like Mustapha Tettey Addy and Aja Addy. He performed with the well-known dancer Koffi Koko - composing and playing the musical rhythms. He also composes percussion - rhythms for different musicians.
Last but not least he proved his talent in numerous solo-concerts in Berlin, Basel, Vienna, Paris, New Orleans, Hongkong.
"Drumming concerns like dancing and singing to the oldest cultural forms of the human being. They are mediators between the spirit and the matter and elementary expression of live itself, of pleasure and love, of sadness and pain, of birth and death, of heaven and earth."
Based on the tradition and his long experience in so many various musical trends from all over the world, Gordon Odametey has developed his very own style and art. He posses great talent and originality!(Gamton Records)

Kassoum Traoré
Malian musician Kassoum Traore was born on August 14, 1979 in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. He grew up in a large family of traditional drummers and began learning to play the djembe at the age of five with his uncle Dougoutigi Keita. Dougoutigi was a professional djembe master who had performed not only all over West Africa, but also in France and other parts of Europe.

When Kassoum was nine years old, his elder brother Adama Traore who was playing with the singing star Mahawa Traore at the time, invited him to join their band. Adama was a very strict teacher who punished Kassoum if his djembe accompaniment wasn't quick enough and for other musical infractions. He learned a lot but also suffered a lot at his brother's hands. To escape his family, Kassoum ran away and joined a band of young musicians in Agbobo, a small town close to Abidjan, where they performed for traditional events.

In 1994 he joined the group Yelenba and resumed his studies with his brother Adama and his uncle Dougoutigi. He began to take solo drumming more seriously at this time and received his master soloist degree from his uncle when he played the djembe solo for seven days straight during a traditional festival. After this event he was frequently asked to perform solo with bands in Abidjan and other parts of the Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali.

In 1997 he performed with the World Music group Argile on their West African tour through the Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Togo. During the same year he also completed a successful recording with Mahawa Traore. In 1998 he again joined Argile for their European tour. He played with Argile on their “Mandingo Festival” CD as well as with Madagascar singer/guitarist Haja Madagascar, Guinean singer Sona Diabate, and most recently with Ghanean drummer, Ahistey Nsotse on “Bush Taxi from Bamako to Accra” CD.

In addition to playing professionally, Kassoum Traore also conducts African drum clinics and workshops all over Germany. For workshop dates please look at "On Tour". If you would like to invite Kassoum Traore to participate in or conduct a djembe workshop for your percussion group or school or would like more information, please contact Dieter Weberpals at weberpals@bibiafrica.de
(bibiafrica.de)

Nii Ashitey Nsotse
Nii Ashitey Nsotse, a Ghanean musician was born on April 19, 1955 in a village called Avenor, nearby Accra.
Since very young he started to come into contact with music due to his family. His father started to teach him traditional African rhythms at the age of ten years.

Nii Ashitey decided to be a professional musician and at the age of 18 he joined the National Folkloric Company Arts Council of Ghana to develop his ideas on different traditional music, which gave him the special training needed to work on international level.
At the Arts Council of Ghana, an Academy for Art and Culture, he completed his drumming and dancing studies and received the title of a "National Drummer" (which includes drumming, building of drums, building of percussion instruments, dancing etc.).
He was one of the participants of the National Folkloric Company who represented Ghana in the Commonwealth Games in Canada. Besides he is one of the founders of the Nafac-Festival, currently one of the most famous music festivals in Ghana.

Nii Ashitey entered the group Nokoko, one of the best African music groups 1972. The name Nokoko was changed to Nokokoyé, when the band's music style changed to even more traditional African music. Nokokoyé was one of the first bands that started to use traditional instruments like drums, xylophone, fruits, bells and African chorus singing. The group left Ghana for a tour in Togo, Benin and Nigeria. Then Nii Ashitey left the band to look for international contacts.

He came to Germany in 1983 and started with workshops on drumming and dancing. He joined the group Susu Bilibi for almost two years. Then, in 1985, he felt the desire to have his former African group, Nokokoyé, come to Germany. The group made a tour all over Germany and in other European countries, too.

A first recording of the group's music was "Talking Drums", recorded in 1986. The second album, "Agoo" of 1990/91 is a mixture of traditional music and reggae; it represents the current performance of the band on stage: traditional music and reggae-tunes.
The third CD of Nii Ashitey & Nokokoyé, "Natty Dread", is pure reggae, and came out in 1994.
Coming back to his African roots, now he offers a new album on pure percussion music together with Kassoum Traoré from Mali. This CD "Bushtaxi from Bamako to Accra" is featuring the dialog in between Ghanean kpanlogo- and Malian jenbé-drums and is published in October 2001.

Ashitey Nsotse has been concentrating the last years on teaching African drums as well and has got a very good reputation as teacher: for workshop dates, please look at "on tour". If you would like to invite Ashitey Nsotse for a Workshop for your percussion-group or school, please contact: weberpals@bibiafrica.de
(bibiafrica.de)

Senegambigha
The African Trance Percussion Group Senegambigha consists of 6 artists / musicians from the countries Senegal, Gambia and Ghana.
The group is one of the most famous percussion groups in Northern Germany, maybe even the whole of Germany. They are also known in Berlin’s local clubs and many other German cities for getting the dance floor quickly filled, as quick as lightning flash.
The musicians Mohamed Diafoune (Senegal), Ayo Nelson-Homiah (Gambia), Emmanuel Domprey (Ghana ), Gordon Odametey (Ghana), Ibrahim Alhado (Ghana), Omar Jobe (Senegal) are specialised in many different traditional instruments.
The style of music played is, of course, traditional including vocals. We perform with instruments such as Djembe, Doundoumba, Kpalago, Seourouba, Talking Drum, Bougarabou, Flute, Maracas, Balafon, Water Drum and Mouth organ, to mention a few.
The combination of the instruments played attracts the audience to invade the dance floor, and that is always a must !!
(Gamton Records)

Sona Diabate & Argile
The sound of Sona Diabate and Argile is a plea for a world without racism. It does so in full colour: in African dance, the colourful "boubous" draping the singers and the drum fireworks of the whole group. Sona Diabate is truly one of the distinctive voices of Africa. Her charismatic stage presence and her expressive voice spellbinds audiences wherever she goes.
Together with her band “Argile”, made up of accomplished musicians from Africa, Germany, and the USA, Sona presents an unforgettable, melange of modern African music without leaving her traditional origins. Sona Diabate and Argile's performances are filled with life affirming energy mixed with playfulness: you can feel this energy rousing people from their seats.
(bibiafrica.de)

Watercolours in the rain
The band started in 1993 as a kind of art project.
Saxophonist and Singer Jörg Krüger, who started up with opening art exhibitions in which he played solo saxophone, at a later stage it developed to a guitar and saxophone duo.
The guitarist Olaf Pinnow with his vast experimental sounds and the spacey saxophone lines quickly got the Berlin art scene to really take notice. Through this came invitations for the duo from well known artists such as Ernst Fuchs, Otmar Alt, Gustavo,Gottfried Helnwein and Udo Lindenburg to perform in their exhibitions.
It was in 1996 at an art exhibition of the painter Ernst Fuchs where they met the percussionist Singer - Composer Ayo Nelson-Homiah who was interested in what the duo was doing.
After a small conversation one felt that the musicians were in search of new music. Up tempo African rhythms, flowing saxophone lines as well as rich experimental guitar chords, gave the music its own language.

The individuality and expressions as well as the easy flowing compositions were always present in the songs from the band, the best way to describe the style is Jungle Space Crossover.
In 1998 the band extended its formation with the bass player Matthias Reiche and the drummer Christoph Wegener.
The band also won a few Music competitions and now performs regular live gigs in some of the best clubs and venues in the City.
The band supported big names like Jocelyn.B. Smith, Heroes Del Silencio and the Dissidenten.
During the 1998 Stones (Bridges To Babylon ) tour, Mick Jagger was given a demo CD titled “Mondays”, and according journalist was very impressed.
(Gamton Records)

Youssou N'Dour (Senegal)
Youssou N'Dour (born October 1, 1959 in Dakar) is a Senegalese singer and percussionist. He helped develop popular music in Senegal, known in the Wolof language as mbalax, a blend of the country's traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with the Afro-Cuban arrangements and flavors which made the return trip from the Caribbean to West Africa in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s and have flourished in West Africa ever since.

Background
Beginning in the mid-1970s the resulting mix was modernized with a gloss of more complex indigenous Senegalese dance rhythms, roomy and melodic guitar and saxophone solos, chattering talking-drum soliloquies and, on occasion, Sufi-inspired Muslim religious chant.
This created a new music which was at turns nostalgic, restrained and stately, or celebratory, explosively syncopated and indescribably funky. Younger Senegalese musicians steeped in Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, James Brown, and the whole range of American jazz, soul, and rock music, which Senegal's cosmopolitan capital, Dakar, had enthusiastically absorbed, were rediscovering their heritage and seeking out traditional performers, particularly singers and talking drummers, to join their bands. (The griots—musicians, praise-singers and storyteller-historians—comprise a distinct hereditary caste in Wolof society and throughout West Africa.)
As it emerged from this period of fruitful musical turbulence, mbalax would eventually find in Youssou N'Dour the performer who has arguably had more to do with its shaping than any other individual.

Life and work
He began performing at the age of 12. Within a couple of years he was performing regularly with the Star Band, Dakar's most popular group in the early 1970s. Several members of the Star Band joined Orchestre Baobab about that time.
Although N’Dour has connections to the traditional griot caste on his mother’s side, he wasn’t raised in that tradition, learning it instead from his siblings. His parents encouraged him to look at things in a more modern manner, leaving him open to two cultures, with the result that he refers to himself as a modern griot.
In 1979, he formed his own ensemble, the Etoile de Dakar. His early work with Etoile de Dakar was in the typical Latin style popular all over Africa during that time, but in the 1980s he developed a unique sound when he started his current group, Super Etoile de Dakar featuring Jimi Mbaye on guitar, bassist Habib Faye, and tama (talking drum) player Assane Thiam.
Youssou N'Dour is one of the most celebrated African musicians in history. A renowned singer, songwriter, and composer, Youssou's mix of traditional Senegalese mbalax with eclectic influences ranging from Cuban samba to hip hop, jazz, and soul has won him an international fan base of millions. In the West, Youssou has collaborated with musicians Peter Gabriel, Axelle Red, Sting, Alan Stivell, Bran Van 3000, Neneh Cherry, Wyclef Jean, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, Branford Marsalis, and others.
In Senegal, Youssou is a powerful cultural icon actively involved in social issues.
He is endowed with remarkable range and poise, a composer, bandleader, and producer with a prodigious musical intelligence. The New York Times most recently described his voice as an "arresting tenor, a supple weapon deployed with prophetic authority". N'Dour absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering this through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside Senegalese culture.
In July 1993, an African opera composed by N'Dour premiered at the Opéra Bastille. He wrote and performed the official anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup with Axelle Red "La Cour des Grands".
N'Dour's major asset is that is strongly grounded in his culture. Even if he chooses to explore elsewhere, his roots are well established.
Some have gone so far as describing him as the African Artist of the Century (Folk Roots magazine). He has toured internationally for almost 30 years. He won his first American Grammy Award (best contemporary world music album) for his CD Egypt in 2005.
In recent years, he has opened his own recording studio, Xippi, as well as his own record label, Jololi.
N'Dour has associated himself with several social and political issues. In 1985, he organized a concert for the release of Nelson Mandela.
He was a featured performer in the 1988 worldwide Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour collaborating with Lou Reed to contribute a version of the Peter Gabriel song Biko which was produced by Richard James Burgess and featured on the Amnesty international benefit album The Secret Policeman's Third Ball.
He has also worked with the United Nations and UNICEF and he started Project Joko to open internet cafés in Africa and to connect Senegalese communities around the world. He performed at three of the Live 8 concerts (in Live 8 concert, London, Live 8 concert, Paris and at the Live 8 concert, Eden Project in Cornwall) on 2 July, 2005, with Dido.
In 2006, N'Dour played the African-British abolitionist Olaudah Equiano in the movie Amazing Grace, which chronicles the efforts of William Wilberforce to end slavery in the British Empire.
(Wikipedia)