Academie Percussion

Line up

• Souleymane Touré (perc., voc.)

• country:
  Cote d'Ivorie
• region:
  West Africa
• style(s):
  Afro Traditional
• label:
  not signed
• type:
  Band, Composer/Songwriter
• gender:
  male
• instrumentation:
  instrumental, vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Ahoi

Academie Percussion
Songs from Ivory Coast, Westafrican Percussion, Ballafon & Kora

Souleymane Toure Ivory Coast: perc, Vocal
Aly Keita - Mali: Ballafon master
Ekow Alabi Ghana: Drums, Vocal
Akinola Famson Nigeria: Drums, Vocal
Djatou Toure Ivory Coast, Vocal and Dance

To maintain joy of life:
Songs about love, the funny side of everyday's difficulties and coping with things happening in life are sung to bring people together.

Souleymane Toure master of percussion, was born into a griot-family
1938 in Doloa. (A griot is a nonmedical practitioner, historian, poet and newsteller).
Souleymane Toure is called, Papa Toure' by almost all of the Africans in Berlin. He works on modern free improvisations, Jazz Standards and improvisations, LatinAmerican rhythms, accompanying of poets, theatre performances composings of his own and logically: Traditionals from West Africa. He knows almost every percussion instrument and teaches playing djembe, congas, timbales, bongos, cabassa, steel-drums drums, tarabuka, self-constructs and talking drums. He played with MAMADOU DOUMBIA, MANU DIBANGO and the legendary broadcast orchestra of the metropolis Abidjan. The band of ALPHA BLONDI was co-founded by him and he was in the charts with the hit ,Brigadier Sabari' in 1982. With countless concerts he travelled every continent of this planet.

Djatou Toure is blessed with a wonderful clear, wide, dramatic and soulish voice to sing Jazz-Standards and improvisations on Jazz, compositions of her own in French an in her genuine language Bambara. She studied at the largest college of music (ENA Ecole Nationale des beaux Arts), and is member of Burida ( Syndicat National des Artistes Musiciens de Cote d'Ivoire, Abidjan) and disciple of the world famous professor Atta Kouassi (head of the National Orchestra of Television of Ivory Coast). Contribution to the music telecasts "Premiere Chance", "Podium", "Vacances Culture" (about traditional dance and traditional African events). Concerts with Koumba Sidibe /Mali. Tiken Jah (Ivory Coast), George Makinto /Liberia, Novo-Groupe Quartet Blue Note /Abidjan, Les Woudy, Blebo & Co. 1997 she start concerts in Europe together with her father Souleymane Toure, Easy Goin'/Afrijazz, Famaya, Benkadi, Gospel with Queen Yahna & Donna Brown, Darius Rafat, Co-Producer ot the weekly African Culture-Salons in Berlin.


Aly Keita - musical worlds - like African rhythms with jazz elements.
On the traditional pentatoric Ballafon he learned in Mali first with Zouratie Coulibaly. 1986 he met Georges Makinto, with whome he made jazz music for the first time. His experiences in the jazz gave him opportunity to arise in Africa, Europe and the USA and made him prominent.
He adapted the Ballafon to most diverse music styles, which made meetings with international famous artists for him possible. In the meantime he played with musicians such as: Philippe Sellam, Linley Marte, Etienne M'Bape, Michel Doneda, Xavier Charles, Sekouba Bambino, Paco Sery, Talib Kibwe, Masahiro Sayama, Aketagawa Shoji, Pharaoh of Sanders, Rhoda Scott, Camel Zekri, Lukas Ligeti, Gilles Renne, Bernhard Zadi, Hans Luedemann and Steve Argueelles.

Ekow Alabi connects Highlife and Reggae to fireworks of rhythm
and big dancefloor full of groove. His ingrediences of Kente are
genuine anthems, Soul, Our Earth, Djembe-Drums, dedications of love,
straight Rasta-People, Roots Reggae, Respect to Almighty God
who maintains rain and the world, a carpet of percusion and over all
Ekows maniac singing in Fanti and English. At the age of five Ekow sang
in the Aladura Gospel-Church of Cape Coast. Ten years old, he playes
drums in a professional percussion group, later with the legendary
Sweet Beans Band, after that he studied ghanan and international
percussion in Accra. In Europe he played with Africa Mma,
Roots Anabo, the Reality Brothers and Vitamin X on countless concerts
and recordings and even as first African Act at the Reggae Sunsplash Festival.

Akinola Famson Musician, lecturer and cultural agent,
He already learned to play flute, ballafon, guitar and drums in his
younger years. He came to Europe in 1980 and works in several formations of african music, traditional and modern as there are:
Jazz, Reggae, Calypso, Funk and Gospel. These different styles of music are influenced by the culture of Yoruba. He performed concerts in Europe and USA. Since 1990 he has been in Berlin and founded Mma Africa together with Mark Asamoah and Asukaten Tendeng and he is member in the groups MOMENT OF TUNES (Jazz), EASY GOIN' (Afro-Bozanova),
WMO (World Music Orchestra with 40 members from 5 continents), MFA Kera & BLACK HERITAGE/Madagascar, BUBA JAMMEH/Gambia, FAMAYA - Afrobeat Groove/Nigeria, Rhytm Taxi with Fela Kuti-Afrobeat, Founding member of the theatre and dancing group OJIJI APARO (bird of omen). Visiting schools and youth centers,
He takes part in discussions about topics like racism, discrimination,
conflicts about tradition and culture, religion and youth-aggressivness.

Links

• Academie Percussion Website
• www.academie-percussion.de