In 1970, a new nightclub opened in Dakar for the city’s politicians, business people and diplomats. It needed a house band. The musicians it hired became Orchestra Baobab.
The band took its name from the Baobab Club. Its members came from across Senegal and neighbouring countries, bringing different traditions: Wolof, Mandinka, Casamance and Togolese influences, and a love of Cuban music.
Cuban sounds in Dakar
Cuban son and rumba records, brought by sailors and sold widely in West Africa from the 1940s, were hugely popular in Senegal. Orchestra Baobab played Cuban-style music with Senegalese flavour: Spanish-sounding lyrics mixed with Wolof, slow grooves, rippling guitar lines and saxophone solos.
Barthélemy Attisso, a Togolese guitarist who was studying law in Dakar, developed a distinctive guitar style, and singers such as Balla Sidibé and Rudy Gomis gave the band its voices.
Mbalax takes over
In the late 1970s and 1980s, a new sound swept Senegal: mbalax, driven by the sabar drums, championed by Youssou N’Dour. Audiences wanted faster, more Senegalese music. Orchestra Baobab faded and broke up in the late 1980s. Attisso returned to Togo to practise law.
Pirates Choice
In the 1980s, the World Circuit label released Pirates Choice, a collection of Baobab recordings from 1982. It became a cult favourite among world music fans in Europe, many of whom had never seen the band.
The reunion
In 2001, the band reunited, with Attisso returning after years away from the guitar. Their album Specialist in All Styles, produced by Nick Gold of World Circuit and Youssou N’Dour, was released in 2002 and introduced them to a new generation. They toured the world, playing to audiences who had discovered them through the old recordings.
Later years
The band released more albums, including Made in Dakar and Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng. Some founding members have since died, and new musicians have joined, keeping the sound alive.
Why they matter
Orchestra Baobab shows how African musicians took Cuban music, itself rooted in African rhythms brought to the Caribbean by enslaved people, and made it their own. The music travelled from Africa to Cuba and back again.
A band hired to play background music in a nightclub became one of the most loved groups in African music. Their recordings still sound like a warm night in Dakar.
