Institute of African American Affairs

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T H E A R T I S T

Cheikh Lô brings with him over forty years of making music fused with a variety of sounds from West and Central Africa and is one of the most well-known artists coming out of Africa today. The path of Cheikh Lô’s career and the topics covered in his artistic creativity will be further explored and examined during his residency.

His most recent album Balbalou received the prestigious Artist Award 2015 at Womex (World Music Expo) with lyrical themes exploring concepts of cor-ruption, coups d’état as well as the importance of peace, love and spirituality.

Born in 1955 in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso to Senegalese parents, Cheikh Lô started at a very young age to sing and play music. He took his first orches-tral steps when he joined the band Volta Jazz Orchestra, one of the best in post-independence West Africa that played both the Cuban and Congolese pop as traditional music from Burkina Faso.

Since then, Lô has worked with various artists exposing him to the musical diversity both in Africa and in the diaspora. He has collaborated with artists from different backgrounds from Pee Wee Ellis, Tony Allen to Oumou Sangaré, Youssou N’Dour, Ibrahim Mallouf, Flavia Cohelo, and Fixi. His five international albums have received resounding success with each ranking number one in the top ten in Europe.

Lô is a member of Baye Fall, a section of the Mouride brotherhood which is marked by his dreadlocks, a hallmark of this very influential Muslim commu-nity in Senegal.

A singer, guitarist, percussionist and songwriter his music fuses Jamaican reggae, funk, which he mixes with the Senegalese rhythms of mabalax and Ghanaian high-life, playing to the cultural openness of his artistry.

T H E P R O G R A M S

SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2016 | 5:00 PMCheikh Lô: From Mouridism to AfrobeatAn evening with Cheikh Lo in conversation with Professors Mamadou Diouf and C. Daniel DawsonNYU Law School, Vanderbilt Hall - Tishman Auditorium, 1st floor40 Washington Square South, NY, NY

Cheikh Lô on his 40-year music career, his journey as a creative and spiritual soul, and the topics that provide a stage for his voice.

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2016 | 6:00 PMCheikh Lô and Danny Glover: Music and Pan-AfricansimNYU Law School, Vanderbilt Hall - Greenberg Lounge, 1st floor40 Washington Square South, NY, NY

Danny Glover will engage Cheikh Lô in a discussion of African causes.

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 | 7:00 PMCheikh Lô and the Changing-Same: African Music in the DiasporaNYU-Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life C95 Lecture Hall, lower level238 Thompson Street (between West 3rd Street and Washington Square South), NY, NY

Since his debut with the Volta Jazz Burkina Faso’s group Lô has consistently worked with artists of different nationalities which explains the Pan-Africanism influences found in his music. To demonstrate that a musical unit can be done in diversity, Cheikh Lô will spend an evening with various artists working in the framework of exchange and experience-sharing. Artists will include drummer Denardo Coleman, saxophonist T.K. Blue and singer Kaïssa.

SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016 | 6:00 PMCheikh Lô: Africa Live ConcertNYU-Skirball Center for the Performing Arts566 LaGuardia Place (corner of LaGuardia Place and Washington Square South), NY, NY

Hosted by Cheikh Lô and a smaller version of his group the Ndiguel Band.

You must register on-line and bring your printed ticket to Skirball for admission. First come first served basis so please arrive by 5:30 pm or your seats may be released. Please note that the Skirball box office will close at 6:30 pm on the day of the concert. Limit 2 free tickets per person. To register for tickets please go to: https://tickets.nyu.edu/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=3247or nyuiaaa.org/event-items/cheikh-lo-africa-live/and click on link for tickets.

For questions and for more information please contact Skirball at 212.998.4941 or boxoffice@nyu.edu

This concert is FREE and open to the public.

Institute of African American Affairs presents

A R T I S T - I N - R E S I D E N C ES P R I N G 2 0 1 6

T.K. Blue, also known as Talib Kibwe, is a saxophonist, flautist, composer, arranger, clinician, and teacher. He was born in New York City to a Trinidadian mother and Jamaican father. He began playing music at the age of 8 years old on trumpet. Blue’s artistry is found on over seventy recordings and he has performed with a long list of great international artists such as Don Cherry, Abdullah Ibrahim, Archie Shepp, Randy Weston, Dizzy Gillespie, Pharoah Sanders, Melba Liston, Johnny Copeland, Billy Higgins, Reggie Workman, Regina Carter, Bobby McFerrin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Benny Powell, James Moody, Paquito d’Rivera, and Jimmy Scott, just to name a few. He lived in Paris, France for a number of years and while there made numerous trips to various regions in Africa. Blue has a Bachelor’s degree in Music and Psychology from NYU as well as a Master’s Degree in Music Education from Teacher’s College, Columbia University. After several years as an adjunct professor at Suffolk Community College and Montclair State University, Blue was hired by LIU-Post as the Director of Jazz Studies. Currently Blue is composing and arranging music for his 11th recording as a leader.

T H E P A R T I C I P A N T S :

Denardo Coleman made his debut on drums at the age of ten on The Empty Foxhole, an album with his father Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden, released on Blue Note in 1966. He began touring with his father in the mid-1980s, managing and producing the group Prime Time to worldwide acclaim. This includes the historical double recording In All Languages featuring Prime Time along with Ornette Coleman’s groundbreaking original quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins. Coleman has been involved with many other projects - none more endearing than the work he has done with his mother Jayne Cortez, one of America’s pre-eminent contemporary poets. With the Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters group, they collaborated on five record-ings including Taking the Blues Back Home and Borders of Disorderly Time. Apart from Coleman’s musical career, the business environment has been his other passion - heading up business management for music related companies, including a newly built multi-track recording studio, located in the historic district of Harlem, New York.

A multi-talented artist, C. Daniel Dawson has worked as a photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, consultant and scholar. He has served as Curator of Photography, Film and Video at the Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center (NYC) and Curatorial Consultant and Director of Education at the Museum for African Art (NYC). Dawson has also taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, New York University and Yale University.

Mamadou Diouf is the Leitner Family Professor of African Studies and the Director of Columbia University’s Institute for African Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and is a former faculty member of the History Department of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. His research interests include urban, political, social and intellectual history in colonial and postcolonial Africa. His publications include: Tolerance, Democracy, and Sufis in Senegal [ed. 2013], New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, and Power (with Mara A. Leichtman) [2009], and La Construction de l’Etat au Sénégal (with M. C. Diop & D. Cruise O’Brien) [2002]. Diouf is a member of the editorial board of several professional journals including the Journal of African History (Cambridge), Psychopathologie Africaine (Dakar), la vie des idées.fr (Paris), Public Culture, and a co-editor (with Peter Geschiere) of the book series, Histoires du Sud/Histories of the South published by Karthala, Paris and New National Histories in Africa published by Palgrave MacMillan.

Kaïssa’s family relocated from Cameroon to Paris, France when she was very young. Her mother was a seamstress, her father was Secretary of Culture and Information but also a writer, poet, and songwriter. In the 1970’s, the arrest of Kaïssa’s father for having written a “subversive” book against the new Cameroonian government would prove pivotal, paving the way for her obsession with justice and an equal distaste for the political machine. She’s worked with international organizations to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women. She has performed around the world and collaborated with luminary artists such as Manu Dibango, Papa Wemba, Salif Keita, Jean-Michel Jarre, Cesaria Evora, Martha Wash, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, and David Byrne to name a few. Her debut album, Looking There was released in 2004 by Sony Music South Africa and received rave reviews for its highly engaging vocals and pulsating African/Western rhythmic backdrops.

Actor, producer, humanitarian and San Francisco native Danny Glover has been a commanding presence on screen, stage and television for more than 30 years. As an actor, his film credits range from the blockbuster Lethal Weapon franchise to smaller independent features such as The Royal Tenenbaums and To Sleep With Anger which he also executive produced. Glover has gained respect and received many awards for his wide-reaching community activism and philanthropic efforts, with a particular emphasis on advocacy for economic justice and access to health care and education programs in the United States and Africa. In 2005 Glover co-founded NY based Louverture Films with writer/producer Joslyn Barnes and recent partners Susan Rockefeller and Matthew Palevsky. The company is dedicated to the development and production of films of historical relevance, social purpose, commer-cial value and artistic integrity. Among the films Glover has executive produced at Louverture are: the César-nominated Bamako, Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Oscar and Emmy nominated Trouble The Water, and the award winning The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Most recently Glover completed a starring role in Mr. Pig co-starring Maya Rudolph which had its debut at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Currently Glover serves as UNICEF Ambassador and an Ambassador of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent.

The Cheikh Lô: Africa Live Concert on April 9th at NYU- Skirball Center for the Performing Arts will be hosted by Cheikh Lô and a smaller version of his group—the Ndiguel Band. The group has traveled all over the world to discover their music based on the acoustic, afro-folk of world music.The Ndiguel Band is comprised of Cheikh Lô (drums and vocals), Alassane Cissé (bass guitar), Khadimou Rassoul Mbaye (percussion), Wilfried Ambroise Zinsou (saxo-phone), and Baye Mahanta Diop (lead guitar).

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Institute of African American Affairs14A Washington Mews, 4th FloorNew York, NY 10003

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at New York University was founded in 1969 to research, document, and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond. IAAA is committed to the study of Blacks in modernity through concentrations in Pan-Africanism and Black Urban Studies.

The NYU-IAAA CHEIKH LÔ Artist-in-Residence programs are free and open to the public. Space is limited. Please RSVP at (212) 998-IAAA (4222) for all programs except the April 9th free concert at NYU-Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Concert attendees must register on-line at nyuiaaa.org/event-items/cheikh-lo-africa-live/ and bring printed confirmation to Skirball. For updates and information please visit: nyuiaaa.org.

L Ô ’ S V O I C E , VA R I O U S LY H U S K Y,

L A N G U I D A N D I M PA S S I O N E D ,

T E L L S — I N W O L O F A N D

B A M B A R A — O F C O R R U P T I O N

A N D C O U P S D ’ É TAT , O F T H E

I M P O R TA N C E O F P E A C E ,

L O V E A N D S P I R I T U A L I T Y.

Jane Cornwell, in her review of the album Balbalou, Jazzwise Magazine

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