Intro Text
Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba ecstatically explore the spiritual songs, stories, and rhythms of Senegal’s millennia-old Mandé culture. Cissokho comes from a long line of prominent griots who are entrusted to maintain a West African village’s genealogies and important ceremonial affairs through song. Cissokho and his band, Kaira Ba, effortlessly integrate the traditional sounds of the kora with a modern rush of electric guitar and an exuberant rhythm section.
Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba ecstatically explore the spiritual songs, stories, and rhythms of Senegal’s millennia-old Mandé culture. Cissokho comes from a long line of prominent griots who are entrusted to maintain a West African village’s genealogies and important ceremonial affairs through song. Cissokho and his band, Kaira Ba, effortlessly integrate the traditional sounds of the kora with a modern rush of electric guitar and an exuberant rhythm section.
When Cissokho immigrated from Senegal to North Carolina, he initiated a collaboration that he hoped might bridge the Atlantic, connecting worlds thousands of miles apart but bound by a shared history. Over the past eight years, Kaira Ba has done just that, producing three full-length albums, touring extensively in the United States, and voyaging twice as a band to Senegal to collaborate with Diali’s extended family and community. In 2014, the band was nominated for the prestigious continent-wide All Africa Music Award (AFRIMA) in the category “Best African Group” for their album The Great Peace. In 2018 the band released Routes, its most ambitious album to date. Recorded in both North Carolina and Senegal, the album was met with critical acclaim. Songlines hailed the album as “up there with the groundbreaking recordings of Thione Seck, Baaba Maal and Youssou N’Dour.”
This engagement is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
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