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| Orchestre Baobab |
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With its visionary mixture of Griot song, Pachanga rhythms, Salsa, Cha Cha Cha, Morna, Highlife and Reggae, the Senegalese Orchestra Baobab has proved itself to be one of the most cosmopolitan bands in Africa since the 1970s. Nick Gold, who produced the Buena Vista Social Club, achieved the remarkable feat of getting these 'specialists in all styles' - with their inventive grooves and soulful singing - back onto the stage again for the first time in twenty years. Baobab combine West African enthusiasm for Cuban sounds with a very definite African idea of what pop is all about. It was along the coasts of West Africa that the transatlantic slave trade began, and it was here - one hundred years later - that descendents of those slaves returned from Brazil, the Caribbean and the USA, taking with them their architecture, their music and their way of life. As a result hybrid musical forms soon came into being, reflecting a very special sensitivity as well as the interpenetration of artistic ideas from the African West Coast to the American East Coast. During the 1960s and 70s, for the first time, African pop music began to display the influence of forms of music that had arrived there in a roundabout way from America. Nigerian and Ghanaian versions of Highlife and Senegalese Rumba are among the most influential styles in African pop music. They can still be found today as samples on the tracks of the youngest generation of rappers.
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