Senegal Singer To Stage African Show For Olympics

DONATE TO JOLLOFNEWS

Senegal Singer To Stage African Show For Olympics

Monday, 14 May 2012 18:58

(AFP) – Senegalese singer Baaba Maal has announced plans to show the world all "Africa has that is beautiful" during the Olympic Games in Britain in the summer.

"People have given me a a responsibility that is imminent. During the Olympic Games in London (from July 27 until August 12), there will be five platforms that represent the five continents," Maal, 58, said in a weekend interview at Wodebere in northeast Senegal while on tour.

"For the African continent, I shall work with the South Bank" cultural complex at the heart of Britain's

Baaba Maal will present a show on London's South Bank this summer (Photo: AFP)

capital "to present everything that Africa has that is beautiful," he told AFP.

According to the singer, who has been touring in partnership with the charity Oxfam to promote the fight against food shortages in the Sahel, the games will provide an occasion to show "what Africa has to offer, in terms of fashion, music, debate, literature, dance and technology -- something that everybody can make their own."

"There are many artists who will be present," he added.

Among the big names on Africa's musical scene, artists include Angelique Kidjo from Benin and Mali's Oumou Sangare, with the Senegalese rapper and producer Didier Awadi, as well as "many young people who will come from just about everywhere in the English-speaking countries."

Senegalese poet Amadou Lamine Sall, the spiritual heir of Senegal's first president and poet, Leopold Sedar Senghor, will also take part.

Baaba Maal was born in a fishing family in Podor in the northern Fouta region. He studied in his homeland and then in France, where he took lessons at the Conservatory of Music, before returning to Senegal and forming his own group, Daande Lenol ("The Voice of the People" in the Peul language).

He has made several albums ("Taara", "Baayo", "Lam Toro", "Firin' in Fouta", "Nomad Soul", "Missing You" and "Television"), working with artists from many different backgrounds.

Comments

0 #6 2012-07-05 15:58

L'hirondelle dans la roseraie.

Avec une
douceur qui
chante l'harmonie
de la pluie en été,
quand le son
de la vie rappelle
la jeunesse et
un tendre oiseau.

Francesco Sinibaldi

Quote

0 #5 2012-06-19 12:52

Bravo my brother BAABA MAAL. You really a true son of the soil of the great AFRICA. I love you because you love yourself,family ,tribe`s men and women,country, continent and the world at large. May ALLAH continues to guide and protect all your endeavors. AMEN!

Quote