Search - Kaouding Cissoko :: Kora Revolution

If you are one of those folks who wish that the traditional sounds of Senegalese music were more dominant in the work of Baaba Maal, here's your opportunity to enjoy those elements more fully. Kaouding Cissoko has been the Daande Lenol band's kora player for a long time and more recently provided an essential ingredient in the recordings of Afro Celt Sound System. Here he stands out front on an album of bright, poppy tunes, many with the subtle Latin groove so essential to the Senegalese pop sound. The band that backs him is a family affair of balafons, guitars, percussion, flutes, electric bass, and female vocals; the result is decidedly folkie and introspective (particularly in contrast to the Baaba Maal sound). It's more a counterrevolution, actually, a positive look back to the acoustic roots of the music: the complex rhythms, the call-and-response vocals, and above all the kora playing of one of West Africa's masters, at long last in the limelight. --Louis Gibson