Latjorr,
Again, thanks for this major happening. I am looking forward to an enjoyable
evening in Atlanta.
Everyone is looking forward to it..
I would not miss it for the world, and good luck. We will continue passing
the word.
Good job.
Ablie
>From: latjor ndow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Press Release: Youssou N'Dour to perform in ATLANTA
>Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 22:38:21 -0500
>
>PRESS RELEASE
>FOR: IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>February 15, 2002
>
>ATLANTA'S FIRST GREAT AFRICAN BALL - APRIL 14
>
>(Visit http://www.africafest.com/ for more information and for the purchase
>of tickets for this year's first Great African Ball.)
>
>
> Africafest, in association with Xibaar production, is proud to announce
>this popular and unique Atlanta happening, featuring Senegal's Youssou
>N'Dour and one of Africa's most beloved dance orchestras, N'Dour's famous
>Super Etoile, will now be coming to The Tabernacle (152 Luckie St.,
>Downtown
>Atlanta) for an unprecedented night, Sunday, April 14, 2002 (7 p.m.
>ONWARDS).
>
> Today's popular music in Senegal, known in the Wolof language as
>mbalax,
>developed as a blend of the country's traditional griot percussion and
>praise-singing with the Afro-Cuban arrangements and flavors which made the
>return trip from the Caribbean to West Africa in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s
>and have flourished in West Africa ever since. Beginning in the mid-1970s
>the resulting mix was modernized with a gloss of more complex indigenous
>Senegalese dance rhythms, roomy and melodic guitar and saxophone solos,
>chattering talking-drum soliloquies and, on occasion, Sufi Muslim religious
>chant. This created a new music which was at turns nostalgic, restrained
>and
>stately, or celebratory, explosively syncopated and indescribably funky.
>Younger Senegalese musicians steeped in Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, James
>Brown, and the whole range of American jazz, soul music and rock, which
>Senegal's cosmopolitan capital, Dakar, had enthusiastically absorbed, were
>rediscovering their heritage and seeking out traditional performers,
>particularly singers and talking-drummers, to join their bands. As it
>emerged from this period of fruitful musical turbulence, mbalax would
>eventually find in Youssou N'Dour the singer and bandleader who has had
>more to do with its shaping than any other individual.
>
> Named "African Artist of the Century" by the English publication Folk
>Roots at the threshold of the year 2000, N'Dour recently signed to the
>respected and eclectic American label Nonesuch Records and is expected to
>release a new album, NOTHING'S IN VAIN (THIONO DU REER) in June 2002, a
>follow-up to the critically-acclaimed JOKO (THE LINK), his first Nonesuch
>release. N'Dour has made mbalax famous throughout the world during more
>than twenty years of recording and concertizing outside of Senegal with
>the
>Super Etoile, Africa's most popular dance band, who, says The Los Angeles
>Times, "play challenging Senegalese roots music with a joyous precision".
>
> The Village Voice's Robert Christgau has called N'Dour "the world's
>greatest pop vocalist" and finds him "the one African moving inexorably
>toward the world-pop fusion everyone else theorizes about", but
>notwithstanding the recognition he and the band have earned
>internationally,
>Youssou N'Dour's rootedness in Senegalese music and storytelling remains
>the
>hallmark of his artistic personality.
>
> At once daring musical innovator and staunch protector of mbalax's
>uncanny
>"Dakar overgroove", N'Dour manages to maintain a sound which is both
>characteristically Senegalese and outward-looking, a synthesis of musical
>languages unmistakably nourished by the musical soil of his homeland. On
>the
>foundation of this highly personal sound, N'Dour remains an icon in his
>country and in the ever-growing Senegalese and African diasporas.
>
>N'Dour continues to make his home in Dakar. But in Atlanta his Great
>African Ball (Grand Bal), a massive dance party in the Senegalese style,
>features the kind of unhinged five- and six-hour performances typical of
>N'Dour's Thiossane nightclub in Dakar.
>
>At the Great African Ball, a diverse array of thousands of Atlantan
>Africans
>from across the Continent become, for one night, N'Dour's happy co-stars,
>their verve finding expression is an extraordinary collective spectacle.
>The food, fashions and emotions of "Africa in Atlanta" mingle with other
>city energies to create a memorable celebration in recognition of an
>unmistakable common humanity, with N'Dour deftly coaxing the revelers
>through a musical storyland both timeless and urgent.
>
> This is a special Atlanta night not to be missed, so save this date!
>
>VISIT http://www.africafest.com FOR DETAILS AND TICKETS.
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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