World Circuit Presents…

SHORT ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Buena Vista Social Club

Originally planned as a collaborative project between Malian and Cuban guitarists. A saga of lost
passports led to the Africans being unable to attend the now legendary Havana sessions. ‘Buena
Vista Social Club™’ is the name given to the extraordinary pool of Cuban musicians assembled by
Juan de Marcos González, Ry Cooder and Nick Gold. It is also the name of the Ry Cooder produced
album that resulted. It was clear from the atmosphere of the recording sessions that something very
special was taking place. However, no one could have predicted that Buena Vista Social Club would
become a worldwide phenomenon selling 7 million albums, winning a GRAMMY, elevating its key
artists such as Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa and Omara
Portuondo to superstar status, and sparking global interest in both Cuban music and culture. Film-
maker Wim Wenders was suitably inspired to bring the Buena Vista Social Club to the big screen,
delighting audiences around the globe with this life affirming story. World Circuit subsequently
released a number of acclaimed solo albums from the major participants in the Buena Vista Social
Club Presents series.

Ali Farka Touré (1939 – 2006)

Ali was a true original. An exceptional guitarist, he transposed the traditional music of his native north
Mali and almost single-handedly evolved the style that became known as desert blues and brought it
to an international audience. In the 1970s Ali released a series of albums that he had recorded at
National Radio Mali. This brought him to the attention of a wider audience and in 1987 he began his
long term relationship with World Circuit, which also saw him embark on a long and successful career
as an international touring artist. In 1994 he recorded the GRAMMY winning ‘Talking Timbuktu’ with Ry
Cooder as co-artist and producer. Soon after Ali retired from music, seeing his main role in life as that
of a farmer and for a large part of his life he dedicated his time and resources to better the agricultural
and situation in Niafunké, his home village in the semi-desert region in northern Mali. In 2004 he was
elected mayor of the Niafunké region. At this time he returned to music with renewed energy recording
the GRAMMY winning duet album with Toumani Diabaté ‘In The Heart Of The Moon’ and his own solo
album ‘Savane’, which has been acclaimed as the best of his career.

Cheikh Lô (1955 - )
The Senegalese maverick is a free spirit, whose musical journey over the years has lead him to soak
up styles and cultures from all over the globe. Cheikh has a deep rooted spirituality focused on his
Baye Fall religious beliefs, and he sports the striking patchwork clothes and dreadlocks that are its
trademarks. A stunning vocalist, drummer and guitarist, Cheikh’s three albums for World Circuit have
encompassed mbalax, reggae, jazz, funk, flamenco, Congolese rumbas, Cuban guajiras, and the
rhythms of Brazil, to produce a sound that is distinctly his own.

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Radio Tarifa
Formed by percussionist Faín S Dueñas, vocalist Benjamín Escoriza and flautist Vincent Molino, who
were drawn together by a common passion for, and desire to experiment with, the underlying
foundations of Mediterranean music. Radio Tarifa took their name from the imaginary radio station of
Tarifa, the town situated on the southernmost tip of Spain, the closest European point to Africa in a
kind of no-man’s land suspended between the Arabic and Mediterranean worlds – a perfect metaphor
for the band. Though beginning life as a studio based project Tarifa emerged as one of the great live
bands, with their Latin GRAMMY nominated live album ‘Fiebre’ a fitting end to the group who split up
in 2006.

Bellemou Messaoud (1947 - )

Affectionately known as 'Le Pere du Rai (The Father Of Rai)', Messaoud helped usher in a new era for
Algerian dance music, and is regarded as the bridge between rai as the wild and earthy tales of
everyday life by artists such as Cheikha Remitti and the modern pop-rai of Khaled. A trumpet player in
a village band, during the 1960s, Bellemou has continued to incorporate western instruments into
Algerian music, including saxophone, trumpet, violin, lute and accordion, and influences ranging from
jazz and rock to flamenco and Latin music.

Afro-Cuban All Stars

Emerged from a long held dream of Juan de Marcos González to put together a band containing old
masters and the new generation of Cuban musicians. Their debut album ‘A Toda Cuba La Gusta’ was
the first of the trio of records to be recorded at the Havana sessions that also produced ‘Buena Vista
Social Club’ and ‘Introducing Rubén González’. What began as a one-off recording project recorded at
the time of the Buena Vista sessions has subsequently emerged as a fully fledged touring and
recording unit with the band now releasing material on Marcos’ own DM Ahora label.

Ñico Saquito (1913 – 1982)

Saquito was at the heart of the Casa De La Trova acoustic music scene in Santiago, Cuba. A master of
the guaracha and guajira styles he was one of Cuba's most beloved son musicians both as a singer
and composer. In the '40s, he worked extensively on radio, but his career really took off in the postwar
years, when he teamed up with fellow acoustic guarachero Maximilliano ("Bimbi") Sanchez, as part of
the Guaracheros De Oriente, a group that Saquito led for decades to come. This amazing artist,
baseball player and mechanic was also involved in the social struggle in Cuba, and continued to write
and play music into his eighties.

Oumou Sangaré (1968 - )

Oumou Sangare caused a sensation in her native Mali and beyond with the release of her debut album
‘Moussolou’ (‘Women’) in 1989. She openly addressed a diverse range of subjects considered taboo in
West African society such as female sensuality and the problems of polygamy. She sings over an
updated version of traditional wassoulou music while retaining its intrinsic hypnotic funk. Oumou is a
superstar in Mali whose cassette releases sell in their hundreds of thousands. She is also a hugely
respected business woman and an Ambassadress of the United Nations Food & Agricultural
Organisation. Oumou has recently performed alongside Alicia Keys, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Tracy
Chapman, and is working on her next album.

Orlando ‘Cachaíto’ López (1933 - )

The ‘heartbeat of the Buena Vista Social Club', Cuban bass player Orlando 'Cachaíto'López is the only
musician who has played on every track on every album in the World Circuit Buena Vista Social Club
series. Cachaíto comes from one of Cuba’s foremost musical dynasties, including his father, Orestes
López and uncle, Israel 'Cachao'López, two of Cuba’s greatest musicians. Cachaíto has accompanied

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Ibrahim Ferrer and Rubén González on their world tours, playing alongside Omara Portuondo, and with
Angá Díaz on his own groundbreaking debut album on World Circuit ‘Cachaíto’, which won a BBC
Radio 3 Award for Word Music in 2002. Cachaíto is now touring in an all-star line up that also features
Guajiro Mirabal, Aguaje Ramos and Manuel Galbán.

Mustapha Baqbou
Moroccan singer and gimbri (also known as hajouj or sinter) player: traditional instrument thought to
be earliest incarnation of the bass guitar. Baqbou launched his career as a member of influential
Moroccan traditional dance band Jil Jilala. He is a master of gnawa music, a trance inducing music
heard at festivals and in the entertainment squares of Marrakesh and beyond. In the 1990s Baqbou
became increasingly adventurous, in 1992 he collaborated with Bill Laswell and in 1996 he released
the album ‘Aisha’ with Danish bassist Peter Danstrup that blended Moroccan and Western influences.
Baqbou has returned to Jil Jilala several times over the years and still continues to also record and
perform as a solo artist.

Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal (1933 - )

Guajiro has been a key figure in the Cuban music scene for over 50 years playing with just about every
Cuban star you could care to mention, as well as playing nightly in the orchestra at Havana’s
legendary Tropicana for almost thirty years. During World Circuit’s recording blitz in Havana in 1996,
Guajiro featured on all three of these seminal albums: Afro-Cuban All Stars ‘A Toda Cuba Le Gusta’,
‘Buena Vista Social Club’, and ‘Introducing Rubén González’.
Having been an integral part of many albums in the Buena Vista series and a key member of Ibrahim
Ferrer’s touring band, Guajiro released his debut solo album, the GRAMMY nominated Buena Vista
Social Club™ Presents Manuel Guajiro Mirabal in 2004.

Black Umfolosi
One of Zimbabwe’s leading acapella and dance groups. They have released a number of recordings
that feature singing styles of Imbube, Mbaqanga and Township songs. Their dynamic live
performances showcase the traditional dancing styles of the Southern African region as well as the
more contemporary styles and movements they develop themselves. Black Umfolosi are much more
than a performing group; they are active in training others, particularly the youth, in dance and voice.
After almost 25 years together the group also continue to tour around the globe.

Omara Portuondo (1930 - )

Omara has been a star in Cuba for nearly half a century, recording and performing with many of
Cuba’s finest musicians. It was the GRAMMY award winning ‘Buena Vista Social Club  ’ album that
brought her greater international recognition, and her critically acclaimed 2000 album ‘Buena Vista
Social Club Presents…Omara Portuondo’ placed her wonderfully expressive voice centre stage, where
it belongs. Her follow up album ‘Flor de Amor’ saw her receive another GRAMMY nomination in 2005.
Sounding as glorious as ever Omara continues to crisscross continents as an ambassadress of Cuban
culture.

Abdel Gadir Salim (1946 - )

A singer, composer and oud (arabic lute) player, Salim’s music is infused by melodies and rhythms
from the Kordofan region in the southern Sahara. Sudan is the gateway between African and Asia, and
Salim has taken it as his mission to fuse the African and Asian sounds of the country. In between
concert tours Salim is also the headmaster at a Sudanese school in Chad, but in 2005 he returned to
the world stage with a collaborative album with former Sudanese child soldier and rapper Emmanuel
Jal.

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Toumani Diabaté (1965 - )
Uncontested master of the kora (West African harp-lute) and largely responsible for bringing the
instrument to the attention of audiences around the world. Toumani released the first ever solo kora
album ‘Kaira’ in 1988 and since then he’s carried his instrument’s exquisite, tingling cadences into his
collaborative projects – with bluesman Taj Mahal, flamenco badboys Ketama and Blur’s Damon Albarn
to name but a few. Simultaneously, his solo works have continually pushed the boundaries of the kora
with new techniques and incorporating new influences. His duets album ‘In the Heart of the Moon’
with Ali Farka Touré won a GRAMMY and his album ‘Boulevard de l’Indépendance’ with the Symmetric
Orchestra unites the two sides of this remarkable musical personality – the virtuosic traditionalist and
the restless innovator– in one seething pot of rhythm.

Symmetric Orchestra
The pan-African group, led by Toumani Diabaté, emerged in the early 1990s from weekly Friday night
sessions at Bamako’s Hogon Club. The aim of the Symmetric Orchestra is to musically recreate the
Mandé Empire that stretched across West Africa, to revive a cultural space that included Guinea,
Senegal, Burkino Faso, the Ivory Coast, and had Mali at its heart. Toumani’s concept is to mix the
authentic, traditional with a modern outlook, with the name Symmetric showing that the balance
between the elements is even, with each instrument contributing equally to the flow. The group has an
ever evolving line-up, and is cross-generational, mixing up traditional songs with new arrangements,
and vice versa, so ‘everything ends up with a new spin’.

Guillermo Portabales (1911 – 1970)

Guillermo Portabales was a unique performer of the Cuban guajira rhythm which is halfway between
punto and son. His cover version of ‘Compay Gallo’ by Ñico Saquito was a massive hit, but he would
become better known for his own compositions covered widely by artists such as Africando, Etoile
2000, Orchestra Baobab and Omara Portuondo. As well as being a huge Latin music star, Portabales
music was also very popular and hugely influential in West Africa. Portabales settled in Puerto Rico in
the early 1950s but continued to record sporadically and perform all over Latin America until his
untimely death in 1970.

Dimi Mint Abba (1958 - )

In her native Mauritania, Dimi Mint Abba is a superstar - widely regarded as Mauritania’s best-loved
female griot - and one of the few artists from that country to have an album released internationally.
Dimi plays the ardin (type of lute) and her music fuses traditional ardin, tidinit and tabal, with female
chorus and electric guitar. Dimi’s tours of Europe and the United States in the early 1990s were a
revelation and she has continued to perform across Africa and the Middle East to this day. Dimi
returned to the UK in summer 2006 and has begun working on a new album.

Sierra Maestra
One of Cuba’s leading son bands, and were instrumental in the revival of the genre in the late 1970s
and 1980s. They are also extremely well known for being the group that launched the careers of Juan
de Marcos González and Jesus Alemañy, two of the most important figures in the development of
Cuban music in the latter years of the twentieth century. The group’s aim was to revive and re-
introduce this popular Cuban music style from the 1920s and 30s to the contemporary mainstream
audience. With their new line-up, Sierra Maestra continue to record and tour throughout the world.

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Orchestra Baobab
Baobab were formed as the house band for Dakar’s Baobab Club in 1970. Their unique and uplifting
Afro-Latin hybrid, tinged with reggae and an eclectic mix of influences owes everything to the
cosmopolitan nature of the band, which includes musicians from all around Senegal (including
Casamance in the south) and beyond. The combination of Casamance plus Cuba created something
completely new and entrancing that was to become Baobab’s trademark. Although hugely popular,
the band would call it a day in the late 1980s after almost 20 years together. When World Circuit re-
released their classic album ‘Pirates Choice’ Nick Gold decided to try and reunite the band for a
concert. The success of the show inspired them to record their GRAMMY nominated comeback album
‘Specialist in All Styles’ 15 years after their last album. Baobab have since been entertaining
audiences around the globe and have begun working on their follow up album.

Rubén González (1919 – 2003)

With a career spanning sixty years, Rubén’s contribution to Cuban music was immense and his
virtuosity on the piano has been an inspiration to generations of musicians & music lovers. He began
his recording career in 1943 with the pioneering bandleader Arsenio Rodríguez, who would help
revolutionise the sound of Cuban music; in the early 1960s Rubén became pianist for Enrique Jorrín,
the man credited for inventing the cha cha cha, and would continue to play for him for the next 25
years, retiring shortly after a spell as bandleader following Jorrín’s death in the mid-1980s. After 10
years Rubén returned to recording during World Circuit’s Buena Vista sessions, which also spawned
his own debut solo album and saw Rubén embark on his first ever world tour. Rubén recorded another
acclaimed solo album ‘Chanchullo’ before he passed away in 2003.

Angá Díaz (1961 - 2006 )

With his explosive soloing and inventive five conga patterns, Cuban musician Miguel ‘Angá’ Díaz was
one of the world’s great congueros. Anga’s musical jouney has lead to him perform with the foremost
experimental band in Cuba, Irakere, sojourns with innovative US jazz musicians Steve Coleman & Roy
Hargrove, then back to his roots with the Afro-Cuban All Stars, Rubén González, and opening doors
with the great Cuban bassist Cachaíto López on his groundbreaking album ‘Cachaíto’ and subsequent
tour – Anga developed upon the basis of that album on his debut release ‘Echu Mingua’ – a unique and
experimental take on classics of Cuban and jazz repertoire, original African, DJ, contemporary
Argentine, and improvised music. Angá unexpectedly died of a heart attack in 2006.

Shirati Jazz
Shirati Jazz were pioneers of the benga movement in Kenya in the late 1960s adapting the rhythms and
sounds of the traditional nyatiti and orutu to an electric lineup. Their lyrics worked in the traditional
praise song tradition, offering support, encouragement, and flattery to listeners .– throughout the
1970s they used to sell about 20,000 singles a month, Shirati Jazz’s popularity stretched across Africa
where their brand of benga was massively successful. The group continued to tour and record
periodically over the years and maintained a club residency in Nairobi until the death of their leader
D.O. Misiani in 2006.

Afel Bocoum (1955 - )

Protégé of the late Ali Farka Touré, Bocoum came to prominence playing in Touré’s group ASCO from
the age of thirteen until well into his forties. Bocoum also won awards for his solo work at Mali’s
national music festival The Biennale, and became a member of the Orchestre Diaba Regional, as well
as keeping up with his agricultural studies. Bocoum much prefers acoustic, traditional instruments,
and along with his haunting vocals this was very much the sound captured when World Circuit

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recorded his debut solo album ‘Alkibar’ in Niafunké. In 2002 Afel played on the album ‘Mali Music’ with
Blur’s Damon Albarn, and in 2006 made his long awaited second album ‘Niger’ for Contre Jour.

Los Zafiros
Los Zafiros (The Sapphires) – Miguel Canio, Ignacio Elejalde, Manuel Galbán, Eduardo ‘El Chino’
Hernández and Leoncio ‘Kike’ Morúa are legends. Their distinctive sound - the twang of electric guitar
pop, the vocal virtuosity of doo-wop and r&b, blended with a unique and imaginative rereading of
bolero, calypso, bossa nova and the rhythmic heritage of Cuba – was a smash in 1960s Havana and
beyond. Likened to groups like the Temptations, they sound vital and alive 40 years later – Zafiros
provide an extraordinary soundtrack to sixties Havana, which makes for incredible listening today.

Ibrahim Ferrer (1927 – 2005)

A singer for nearly forty years until he retired in 1991, Ibrahim’s is a true fairytale story. He came to
worldwide fame with his inspired performances on the Buena Vista Social Club album and film.
Ibrahim's distinctive, emotional interpretations of songs marked him out as a truly special artist with
tremendous improvisational skills and he was known for being one of the last great exponents of the
bolero. Ibrahim became an international star whose charismatic performances touched audiences
wherever he played. His debut solo album sold over a million copies and his second album ‘Buenos
Hermanos’ won him both a GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY. Ibrahim died in 2005, shortly after recording
material that will form part of his lifelong dream, an Ibrahim Ferrer bolero album.

By Dave McGuire & Nick Gold

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World Circuit Records
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1 Floor, Shoreditch Stables, 138 Kingsland Road. London E2 8DY
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