 |
AFRICAN SUPERSTAR - SALIF KEITA
TOUR DATES
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
11 March 2007 | Womadelaide- Botanic Park, Adelaide
NEW SOUTH WALES
13 March 2007 | Sydney Opera House, Sydney |
"The Golden Voice of Africa", Malian singer Salif Keita, a key founder of modern Afro-pop, will perform in Sydney for one unforgettable night in the Concert Hall at Sydney Opera House on Tuesday March 13
Salif Keita, one of Africa's finest singers, is renowned for his soaring vocals and emotion-packed songs, melding traditional Malian music with western influences. His concerts are renowned for sending audiences into dancing frenzies. Salif has enjoyed a prosperous career - not only in his native Mali, where he was awarded the National Order of Guinea, but also in Europe and America, where he became well-known after moving to Paris in 1984.
His life story is a bizarre fairy-tale. A direct descendent of the Mandinka warrior king and founder of the Malian empire, Sundiata Keita, he was born an albino, a sign of bad luck in Africa, and was initially shunned by both his family and community. He was isolated during his childhood and teenage years, and turned to music as a means to use of his obvious talents and connect with others. Legend has it that his voice, a baroque and ultra-powerful sound developed while "chasing larks and baboons from the family's maize crops."
Salif raises money for healthcare for albinos through his Salif Keita Global Foundation, which is also involved in programs to help eradicate AIDS, malaria and poverty in Africa. In 2004 he was named UN Ambassador for Music and Sports.
He made his debut in the sixties with two of most influential orchestras on the local scene in Mali - the Rail Band, who performed without Keita at the 2005 Sydney Festival and with repertoire consisting mostly of traditional Mandingo songs, and the Ambassadeurs who blended traditional Cuban music, English pop, American soul, Argentinean tango and accordion-waltzes!
Since then he moved away from Africanized Latin tunes to explore his Mande birthright. His more recent work has blended the traditional griot music of his childhood with other West African influences from Guinea, the Ivory Coast and Senegal, along with the music of Spain, Portugal, and Cuba. Salif Keita has made many albums over the years, the most recent being M'Bemba in 2005, which was recorded in Mali in the very studio that Salif built for himself at his birth place of Bamako, Mali.
