...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...When Tom Jones won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1965, it ignited a career that would see over 100 million albums sold and thirty-six Top 40 hits in the UK. Born in Wales in 1940, Jones began singing at a young age but suffered from...
...Considered the “Queen of Turkish Pop,” the career and music of Sezen Aksu has laid an aesthetic foundation for modern Turkish popular music. Born in the province of Denizli in 1954, Aksu was discouraged by her family from pursuing music...
...In becoming the most significant Swedish music export, ABBA transformed the pop and disco landscape across the globe. In 1966, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, both veterans of multiple bands, began writing songs while simultaneously...
...The prolific career of Daler Mehndi helped establish an Indian popular music industry outside the Bollywood system and brought bhangra dance music to the globe. Born in Bihar in 1967, Mehndi left home at fourteen to study voice, tabla...
...The kora player Toumani Diabaté took the traditional twenty-one-string harp from his native Mali and introduced it to the globe. Born in 1965, Diabaté and his family can trace seventy generations of kora players and, in 1970, his father...
...Born Frances Rose Shore on February 29, 1916, in Tennessee, USA, Shore started her story of strength by recovering from polio, which had struck her at eighteen months old. Shore retained a handicap in her right leg from the disease. She...
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