Bassist Charlie Ndiaye and percussionist Mountaga Koite soon followed, joined by rhythm guitarist Latfi Ben Jelloun, Nigerian clarinet player Peter Udo, and veteran griot singer Laye Mboup. Well known as a hangout for those with status and power, the club was built around a baobab tree, and to fire up its musical roster, its well-connected owners poached Star Band singers Balla Sidibe, Rudy Gomis and guitarist Barthelemy Attisso. This eclectic blend of local and international rhythms and styles would all later feed into Baobab’s DNA.īy the start of 1970, at the height of the Star Band’s fame, a new fashionable venue, Club Baobab, opened its doors in Dakar’s European district. During this period of cultural convergence, Senegalese traditional music was also being heavily championed and promoted by Léopold Senghor, Senegal’s renowned president, poet and cultural theorist.
Here, Kassé’s house band lit up the night with a music flavoured by new rhythms from around the world, all flowing into Dakar – a modern and cosmopolitan city and one of the great ports of west Africa – from America, Europe, and Cuba, as well as from Senegal’s West African neighbours Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. The band owes their start to the entrepreneurial force that was Ibra Kassé, club owner, impresario and founder of the Star Band, whose residency at Dakar’s Club Miami in the mid 60s made it a notoriously lively joint.
Their epic story begins in the heart of Dakar’s Medina in the late 1960s, and extends across the world and into the 21st century, featuring an extraordinary group of singers and players from across the continent, and encompassing a ground-breaking mix of Afro-Latin styles, international pop, traditional griot music, and an after-dark nightclub ambience of lilting, mellifluous rhythms. This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of Africa’s greatest bands, Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab.
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