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Ebenezer Obey

Artist Pages

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...Known professionally as the “Chief Commander,” Ebenezer Obey’s career trajectory mixed innovative musical performance with traditional music and lyrics and song structure. Obey was born in the Nigerian state of Ogun in 1943 to Egba-Yoruba...

Salif Keita

Artist Pages

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...One of the major voices in Mali’s music culture, Salif Keita is known as the “golden voice of Africa.” Born in Djoliba, Mali in 1949, Keita is a prince of the Keita royal family. He was born with albinism and subsequently ostracized by his...

Tabu Ley Rochereau

Artist Pages

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...Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi, known as Tabu Ley, was a Congolese composer and singer-songwriter famous for experimenting with the Latin rumba to make it a national style, the Congolese soukous. Tabu Ley was born on November 13, 1937...

Thomas Mapfumo

Artist Pages

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...The songs of Thomas Mapfumo, the “Lion of Zimbabwe,” soundtracked the years on either end of Rhodesia’s independence, and later echoed a growing public criticism of Robert Mugabe. Born southeast of the capital city Harare in 1945, Mapfumo...

Youssou N'Dour

Artist Pages

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...Often described as one of the most popular singers in Africa, Youssou N’Dour played an important role in the popularization and secularization of Senegalese music in the late twentieth century. Born in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, in 1959...

Umm Kulthūm

Artist Pages

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...A national icon of Egypt, Umm Kulthum had a singing career that made her one of the most important stars in the Arabic-speaking world. Born in Egypt in 1898, Kulthum was taught to sing and recite the Koran by her father, an imam. By the age...

E.T. Mensah

Artist Pages

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...Dubbed the “King of Highlife,” horn player and vocalist E. T. Mensah nurtured the form in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in 1919 in the Gold Coast, now Ghana, Mensah learned to play flute while at the Accra Government School. He went on to play...

Bembeya Jazz

Artist Pages

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...As a prominent interpreter of Guinean folk music, Bembeya Jazz National combined Afropop with its nation’s musical culture to produce one of the continent’s most popular sounds. Following Guinean independence in 1958, bands were encouraged...

Ebenezer Calendar

Artist Pages

...The music of Sierra Leone’s Ebenezer Calendar served as an aural statement on the dynamics of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Born in Freetown in 1912, Calendar’s father came from Jamaica and influenced young Ebenezer with rhythm and song...

Sayed Darwish

Artist Pages

...Considered by many to be the father of Egyptian popular music, Sayed Darwish’s contribution to the country’s musical culture is virtually unmatched. He was born in Alexandria in 1892 and his family sent him to a religious school, after...