SEUN KUTI “You gave me your mud and I made gold from it” This famous Baudelaire quote could be the Kuti family motto, employed by father and son alike. Their songs, filled with the corruption, ignorance, malady, sadness, pollution and the many others ill that ravage contemporary Africa, are veritable musical treasures, flamboyant, jubilatory songs that make you want to get up and dance.
AYO is a German born artist, the offspring of a Nigerian father who had come to Germany to study in the 1970s, and sometimes worked as a DJ, and a mother who is a gypsy. AYOs rather unusual name means joy in Yoruba. Her rich cultural background is also reflected in her musical influences. She grew up amidst Pink Floyd and Fela Kuti, the Soul Children and Bob Marley, and many others.
Multitalented singer, songwriter & producer Francis Jocky is something of an enigma, an artist with universal appeal and blessed with a unique voice. Listeners may hear an echo of Joan Armatrading, Seal, Sting, and Bob Marley. Born in Cameroon, raised in Paris, France, based in New York City and having performed around the world, Francis Jocky has developed a sound that transcends borders.
Affinity Asa was born in Paris. Her early life in the City of Light left the little girl with only the vaguest of (happy) memories, since she was no more than two years old when her family returned to live in Nigeria. Paris was just one stage in the life of her courageous and hard-working parents. But her fate was tied up with the city: it was to Paris that Asa returned twenty years later and where her life as an artist took wing.
Popular Twenty years ago, while in her early forties, Cape Verdean vocalist Cesaria Evora returned to the stage after a performing hiatus of nearly two decades, during which time she raised her family. Within a few years, in 1988, she was lured from her Portuguese/Creole-speaking island home off the western coast of Africa to Paris to record her breakthrough album.