Jazz Articles about Balimaya Project

About Balimaya Project

Live Review

Balimaya Project at Barbican Centre

by Chris May
October 20, 2023

Balimaya Project Barbican Centre, Main Hall When The Dust Settles London October 17, 2023 Founded in 2019 by London-based djembe player Yahael Camara Onono, the eighteen-piece Balimaya Project is an all-male ensemble dedicated to celebrating its members' African musical heritages, which it approaches as evolving, future-facing entities. The band blends West African traditional music--with a special emphasis on Mandé culture--with jazz and other sounds of Black Britain. It released its second album, When The ...

Album Review

Balimaya Project: When The Dust Settles

Read "When The Dust Settles" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
August 12, 2023

Formed in 2019 by London-based drummer and percussionist Yahael Camara Onono, the sixteen-piece Balimaya Project blends traditional West African Mandé music with modal jazz and other sounds out of modern Black London. The ensemble's closest comparator, albeit at some remove, is the veteran Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab who, in the 1980s, were hugely popular at home and abroad. But Baobab's repertoire, although it included Mandé folk music, was based chiefly on the Wolof tradition. There is more ...