- country:Senegal
- label:Chapter Two / Wagram Music
- artist posted by:CityZen Music
Line up
- Alassane (bass)
- Badou (drums)
- Baye (guitar)
- Cheikh N'Diguel Lô (vocals)
- Khadim (percussion)
- Wilfrid (saxophone, trombone)
Links
Flowing dreadlocks, craggy face, slender frame dressed in multi-coloured patchwork; the voice, mellifluous and soaring above a full-on mbalax groove or earth-toned and intimate on an acoustic ballad; it must be Cheikh Lȏ. The worthy recipient of the 2015 WOMEX Artist Award can look back over a career spanning more than four decades, from 70s Burkina Faso, as the young drummer of Orchestre Volta Jazz, to the 80s in Senegal, making a name on the Dakar music scene, and then as session player in Paris before his international breakthrough in 1996 with his idiosyncratic mix of mbalax, Cuban and reggae influences on Ne La Thias. He's sparing with his album releases but 2015 finds him in best-ever form with the acclaimed Balbalou. Cheikh Lȏ has always taken his own time to walk his own path and speak his own mind.