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Balimaya Project
Balimaya Project at Barbican Centre
by Chris May
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 ...
read moreBalimaya Project: When The Dust Settles
by Chris May
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 ...
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