WINNERS of the SHOW Music from Sahara Africa
The 2ndedition of the AFRO PEPITES SHOW: The AFROS PEPITES of AFRICA, MIXED and INSPIRED
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Winner of the category AFROS PEPITES
Issa BAGAYOGO
– Mali, France – Electrobeat from Bamako Issa BAGAYOGOa music meeting between Western Africa and Europe.
INFO for ORGANIZERS: Issa BAGAYOGO is based in Bamako (Mali).
Contact Manager: Zutique
Production: http://zutique.com/booking/issa_bagayogo
Biography:
In the mid-1990s, after making several recordings and failing to have a regional hit with any of them, Issa was making his living driving a bus. He moved to Bamako (Mali’s capital city) and meet Yves Wernert, sound engineer and artistic director of Mali K7, a record company founded by Philippe Berthier, which had an important role in the promotion of modern Malian music.
Then, Yves Wernert proposes Issa to create a highly personal sound that combined the acoustic traditions of his region with elements of electronic music, rock, and dub. Ten years and four albums later, Issa Bagayogo is a regular star attraction on stages around the continent, playing for huge and wildly enthusiastic audiences. He has become well recognized for his subtly insistent voice and his skillful talent on the kamele n’goni that is popular throughout western Africa.
His reception outside of Africa has been warm as well. Reviewing one of his pneumatic live shows, England’s Folk Roots magazine marveled at his energy, saying that he “may radically reshape West Africa’s groove… when Issa plays, only the dead stay still,” while Billboard said it was time to “add this man’s name to the growing list of Mali’s emerging world-music luminaries.
The Village Voice concurred, pronouncing Issa’s music as “the finest Afro-European rhythmic structures Mali can provide.” The critical community and fans worldwide have been waiting for over four years in anticipation of Mali Koura, Issa’s new release, which has proved to be worth the wait. Issa’s sound has matured, tightened and ripened into a fully-realized Afro-European hybrid – no longer does it sound like a fusion of two separate cultures, but rather like the fully-evolved music of a brand new culture.
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