Live Music: Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba...

Wednesday 14 October 2009

The concert follows on from their highly successful appearance at this year’s Guildford International Music Festival in March where they launched their UK Spring Tour. Festival Director Pauline Johnson said: “They are certainly back by popular demand - we had an amazing response to them! Audiences hardly ever have the chance to hear world music in Guildford and we hope that this will be an equally vibrant and successful event. By bringing wonderful musicians like these to the Festival, we are responding to the growing appetite for music from other cultures.”

Bassekou Kouyate has become the ambassador of the ngoni. By transforming the traditional music of the ngoni and creating a new line-up as a quartet with a rock band’s style of playing, Bassekou has brought this ancient instrument back to the centre of Malian music and propelled it to the rest of the modern world. Together with Ngoni Ba, he takes the infectious rhythms and melodies straight from his native Mali and has been rocking stages around the world!

Like the award-winning debut album ‘Segu Blue’ (2007), ‘I Speak Fula’ was recorded in Bamako and produced by Lucy Duran and Jerry Boys. It features contributions by Toumani Diabate, Vieux Farka Toure and Kasse Mady Diabate.

Bassekou was born in the village of Garana, almost 40 miles from Segu, in the remote countryside on the banks of the Niger River. He was raised in a traditional musical environment, his mother a praise singer and his father and brothers exceptional ngoni players. Bassekou moved to Bamako when he was 19 years old where he met the young Toumani Diabate. By the late 1980s Bassekou was part of Toumani’s Symmetric trio (alongside Keletigui Diabate) and they recorded their first albums together, ‘Songhai’ and ‘Djelika’. Bassekou was involved in Toumani Diabate’s ‘Kulanjan’ project as well which also featured Taj Mahal. Moreover, Bassekou was one of the key musicians on Ali Farka Toure’s posthumous album ‘Savane’ and also toured with him. (As a tribute to the great man Bassekou recorded the track ‘Lament for Ali Farka’ for his album.) Bassekou has collaborated with many musicians outside of Mali, too, such as Ry Cooder and Bela Fleck and more recently Youssou N'Dour (on his album 'Rokku Mi Rokka') and Dee Dee Bridgewater (on her album 'Red Earth').

Bassekou’s debut album ‘Segu Blue’, secured him critical acclaim across the music industry. Released in spring 2007, the album won exceptional critical acclaim. It ended up in numerous end-of-year lists such as the Observer Music Monthly's Best 50 Albums of 2007, Songlines magazine's 10 Best Albums of 2007 and The Guardian's 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die, as well as being number 3 in the World Music Charts Europe 2008. At the BBC Radio 3 Awards For World Music 2008 it was declared the winner of the Album Of The Year Critics Award, as decided by an international panel of nearly 300 writers, broadcasters, musicians, activists and people in the business, and conducted by Roots magazine. In addition Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba won the Best African Act category at the Awards and they were also nominated as Best Newcomer.

The band has been guests on radio and TV, such as a performance on Later with Jools Holland (BBC 2) and has performed several times in the UK, including at the 2007 WOMAD Festival. They have established themselves as one of the most exciting live acts of the moment with their rocking, high energy performances.

You can sample some of his wonderful music at www.myspace.com/bassekoukouyate
The performance on Friday 30 October at University of Surrey’s Great Hall starts at 8:00 p.m.

Concert tickets are £18 full / £16 senior citizens / £10 concessions. The event is seated but there is plenty of space to dance if you want! Tickets are available from the Box Office on 01483 686876. Further information.

Media Enquiries

Peter La, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: +44 (0)1483 689191, or Email mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk