Have you purchased your tickets to what could be the Koroga Festival of the year?
Capital’s Koroga festival is wrapping up the year in style with tomorrow’s gig promising to be one of the best one’s yet as Mali’s prolific ‘Golden Voice of Africa’, Salif Keita is set to headline the event.
Music fans in Nairobi will tomorrow join the world in celebrating one of Africa’s most influential artists who is winding down a very successful career after 50 years of being in the industry. His performance tomorrow at the Uhuru Gardens will be part the musician’s worldwide farewell tour.
The Mali musician has been on a tour across the US and Europe to promote his final album “Un Autre Blanc” (Another White Man) that was officially released on October 26 on the French music label Naive Records.
The album’s title is obviously a reference to the prejudices and violence that he, and other people living with albinism face. In his new and last record which features 10 brand-new songs, Salif celebrates the person he has become following a life of tribulations because of his difference and calls on the world to celebrate all of our differences with him.
Keita has used his stature to highlight the plight of albinos in Africa, first through a foundation called SOS Albinos in Bamako and later the Salif Keita Global Foundation, a fight he pledges to continue especially after the UN declared June 13, the International Albinism Awareness Day.
As a child, Salif’s pink complexion and yellow hair shocked his father who shunned him and his mother.
Undeterred by these caste restrictions, Salif spent two years, playing the guitar and singing in markets, bars and cafes until his unique voice began to attract attention and was soon after recruited as lead vocalist for The Super Rail band of Bamako in 1967.
However, his international stardom was confirmed with a performance at the historic Nelson Mandela 70th birthday concert in London in 1988.
Salif who turns 70 in August next year now says that after half a century of touring and recording he is taking a break to spend time with his children and grandchildren.
His latest album features a host of collaborations with some of Africa’s biggest music stars across the generations, from veterans like Alpha Blondy, Angelique Kidjo and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to contemporary Afropop singers like Nigeria’s Yemi Alade.
The 24th edition of the Koroga Festival will also feature performances by Nigerian rapper Skales and Kenyan band Mambo Tribe fronted by Wakake Otieno and Michel Ongaro.
Last minute tickets are on sale for Ksh. 2,500 and tickets while tickets at the gate will be available for Ksh. 3,000. Gates will open at 12 pm and performances are expected to start at 3 pm.
What’s your favourite Salif Keita song?