Orchestra Baobab

ARTISTS

Orchestra Baobab

This Senegalese band, incarnated in 1970, gives authentic significance to the genre name “world music.” Orchestra Baobab, which relied on Cuban influences, recasted rumba into forms like soukous and highlife. The band took their name from the Club Baobab — named for the African baobab tree — where they got their start playing in Dakar, Senegal. After becoming quite well known, they moved to Paris in 1978 and then Marseilles. As popular preference had shifted away from their sound, Orchestra Baobab returned to Senegal and reorganized.

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