Arts + Culture
Mbalax: how Senegal’s sabar drums became the country’s pop music
Mbalax is Senegal's national popular music, built on the rhythms of the Wolof sabar drums combined with guitars,…
Senegal
Music
Dreadlocks, Sufi faith and a debut produced by Youssou N’Dour: Cheikh Lô
Cheikh Lô, born in 1955 to Senegalese parents in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, played with Orchestre Volta Jazz before…
Arts + Culture
Pedro Almodóvar heard “Tajabone” and put it in All About My Mother. Ismaël Lô, Senegal’s Bob Dylan
Ismaël Lô, the Senegalese singer and guitarist often called Africa's Bob Dylan for his harmonica and guitar, found…
Arts + Culture
Orchestra Baobab played Cuban-flavoured music in a Dakar nightclub in the 1970s. Their 2001 comeback made them world stars
Orchestra Baobab formed in 1970 as the house band at the Baobab Club in Dakar, playing a mix…
Arts + Culture
The voice in Black Panther’s score belongs to Baaba Maal, a Fulani singer from the banks of the Senegal River
When composer Ludwig Göransson went to Senegal to research the Black Panther score, he recorded with Baaba Maal.…
Arts + Culture
“7 Seconds” spent 16 weeks at number one in France. Its singer later became Senegal’s minister of culture
In 1994, Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry released "7 Seconds", sung in Wolof, English and French. It spent…