Orchestra Baobab

Fifty years of Orchestra Baobab: The Story of West Africa’s Best Dance Band This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of Africa’s greatest bands, Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab. 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. 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. 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. 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. This eclectic blend of local and international rhythms and styles would all later feed into Baobab’s DNA. By 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. 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. 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. With that, the stage was set for Orchestra Baobab to set the tempo for a new era of modern Senegalese and African music, drawing through the club’s doors a diverse urban crowd ranging from influential politicians and businessmen to army officers, celebrities and expats. “The guy who ran it knew politicians and there was big money,” recalls Barthelemy Attisso. “You had to wear a tie and suit. It was very strict.” Combining pop, soul, funk and traditional music from across Senegal and beyond, Orchestra Baobab quickly developed a distinctive take on a raft of styles that reflected the cultural mix and the strong musical personalities of its members. Balla and Rudy hailed from Senegal’s culturally rich Casamance area, saxophonist Issa Cissokho from Mali, and Latfi from Morocco. Guitarist Attisso – the lawyer-turned-guitarist whose arpeggio runs would become one of the band’s scintillating trademarks – came from Togo. But what bound these myriad elements as tight as a drum skin was a strong Cuban influence, introduced to Senegal by sailors flowing in and out of the Port of Dakar. This strong Afro-Cuban vibe was tempered with the band’s interest in West African traditional music. “Tradition didn’t enter too much into the Star Band, which was vivid and modern” remembers Attisso. “Experimenting with the traditional, as Baobab did, was unique at that time. There was a huge public appetite for traditional music,” he adds, “so we had that whole scene waiting for us. It gave us a lot of confidence.” Baobab would remain in residence at the club for seven years, releasing two self-titled LPs featuring the celebrated griot Laye Mboup amongst its vocalists. They took West African music into a vivid future by fusing it with the music of its past, subverting the dominance of Cuban music in Senegal’s clubs and fusing amplified instrumentation with Griot song traditions. Having already become a popular griot in his own right, Laye Mboup often sang in local ceremonies as well as at Club Baobab, and the band needed a stand-in from time to time. Enter two young talented griots, Ndiouga Dieng and Thione Seck, who would join Balla Sidibe, Medoune Diallo and Rudy Gomis as vocalists. Tragically, Laye Mboup died in a car crash in 1974, yet musically, Baobab had hit the motherlode, releasing no fewer than five LPs in 1975 which had been laid down in one remarkable, epic recording session.