CULTURES WITHOUT BORDERS - CONCERT - WORLD MUSIC

Alliance française de Toronto invites you to discover Hampaté & Sahel Blues on Friday, February 5, for a concert of Senegalese music, the mixed tones of the St. Louis region.

Mapathe Gaye was born in 1980 from a walo-walo father (of Fulani origin) and a leboue mother. He was only two years old and sent to Dagana (region of St. Louis) with a paternal aunt who will be in charge of raising him. It is here that he will be introduced to what makes his life today: music. To understand his inspiration, we must look at the city of Dagana, the capital of Wallo, characterized by its ethnic and cultural mix. Mapathe ensures that this melting pot in which he bathed his childhood influenced him in his musical tastes.

In 1998, fallen in the hip-hop fashion, he formed a band with friends. But perfectionist, he realizes that he lacks some essential basics and he entered the conservatory in Dakar in 2000.

Five years later, Mapathe comes out as a guitarist and composer. With his lessons and experience, he excels in the art of blending the sounds of jazz and rhythms and blues, the melodies and harmonies of the Sahel sounds. He began playing solo with his guitar in bars and restaurants of Dakar. After some success by Youssou Ndour, Baba Maal and Ismael Lo, he played his own compositions very quickly. In 2007 he formed the band "Hampaté & Sahel-Blues", a mix between his real name and Mapathe Amadou Ba Hampaté, a personal tribute to a champion of African oral culture, and Fulani in particular, this great sage of the Sahel.

Since then, the group travels Dakar and its surroundings, present in all the major festivals (Gorée festival, blues, youth, international festival of folk). It occurs in large hotels as in more intimate rooms and during large parties or events (Festart, 50 years of the Institut Français de Dakar, gala evening with the Senegalese Press Agency). In 2012, the band released their first album.

More information here