Baaba Maal: Tales from the Sahel at RNCM, Theatre

‘African music is at the start of a new era.
We have to open ourselves to the currents
flowing elsewhere, without losing our ancestry.’
Baaba Maal

If anyone personifies the new Africa, with its
need to balance the demands of modernism
and tradition, it is the elegant Senegalese
singer, Baaba Maal. An imperious figure with an
intellectual and spiritual cast that contradicts
his wild stage dancing, Maal’s status across
West Africa is somewhere between Dylan and
Marley; simultaneously folk hero, pop star and
social conscience....

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‘African music is at the start of a new era.
We have to open ourselves to the currents
flowing elsewhere, without losing our ancestry.’
Baaba Maal

If anyone personifies the new Africa, with its
need to balance the demands of modernism
and tradition, it is the elegant Senegalese
singer, Baaba Maal. An imperious figure with an
intellectual and spiritual cast that contradicts
his wild stage dancing, Maal’s status across
West Africa is somewhere between Dylan and
Marley; simultaneously folk hero, pop star and
social conscience.

The vision extends beyond music. Rooted in a
desire for African empowerment, enlightenment
and unity, Maal embodies a widespread
ongoing endeavour for global peace.

‘The only rival to Youssou N’Dour as West
Africa’s biggest international star, his
charismatic presence and noble bearing make
it difficult to take your eyes off him on stage.
He was singing his heart out and sending chills
down the spine with his soaring mix of Islamic-
tinged inflections and African soul. The crowd
remained motionless on its feet, apparently
hypnotised by the spell-like power of his voice.’
The Times

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