Senegal's music is best known abroad due to the popularity of mbalax, a development of conservative music from different ethnic groups and sabar drumming popularized internationally by Youssou N'Dour.
The music of Mali is, like that of most West African nations, ethnically diverse, but one influence predominates: that of the ancient Mali Empire of the Mandinka. Mande people make up around 50% of Mali's population; other ethnic groups include the Fula (17%), Gur-speakers 12%, Songhai people (6%), Tuareg and Moors (10%).
Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer, guitarist, violinist and songwriter. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin and is recognized as the first to play an electrically amplified violin.
Eric Charles Bibb is a Grammy-nominated American-born blues singer and songwriter.
Habib Koité is a Senegalian-born Malian musician, singer, songwriter and griot based in Mali. His band, Bamada, was a supergroup of West African musicians, which included Kélétigui Diabaté on balafon.
Boureima "Vieux" Farka Touré is a Malian singer, composer and guitarist. He is the son of Malian musician Ali Farka Touré.
Tartit are a band from the Tombouctou Region of Mali. The group consists of five women and four men, all of whom are Tamasheq-speaking Tuareg. They formed in 1992 in a refugee camp in Mauritania. Imharhan, an expanded group that includes current and former Tartit members, incorporates electric instruments and cross-cultural experiments into their music.
Terri Ann Hendrix is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and independent artist who has been writing and performing an eclectic mix of Americana genre, encompassing folk, pop, country, blues, and jazz, since 1990. Since 1988 Hendrix has been based in and near San Marcos, Texas, living as of 2017 in nearby Martindale, after growing up in San Antonio, Texas.
Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino) was born Pura Fé Antonia "Toni" Crescioni) is singer-songwriter, musician, story teller, instructor, seamstress, artist and a founding member of the Native Women's a cappella trio Ulali.
Skip McDonald is an American musician who also performs under the stage name Little Axe.
African Blues is an album by the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, released in 1990. It was originally released by French label Sonodisc.
Tishoumaren or assouf, internationally known as desert blues, is a style of music from the Sahara region of northern and west Africa. Critics describe the music as a fusion of blues and rock music with Tuareg, Malian or North African music. Various other terms are used to describe it including desert rock, Saharan rock, Takamba, Mali blues, Tuareg rock or simply "guitar music". The style has been pioneered by Tuareg musicians in the Sahara region, particularly in Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria, Burkina Faso and others; with it also being developed by Sahrawi artists in Western Sahara.
Ali Ibrahim "Ali Farka" Touré was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music blends traditional Malian music and its derivative, African American blues and is considered a pioneer of African desert blues. Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
African blues is a genre of popular music, primarily from West Africa. The term may also reference a putative journey undertaken by traditional African music from its homeland to the United States and back. Some scholars and ethnomusicologists have speculated that the origins of the blues can be traced to the musical traditions of Africa, as retained by African-Americans during and after slavery. Even though the blues is a key component of American popular music, its rural, African-American origins are largely undocumented, and its stylistic links with African instrumental traditions are somewhat tenuous. One musical influence that can be traced back to African sources is that of the plantation work songs with their call-and-response format, and more especially the relatively free-form field hollers of the later sharecroppers, which seem to have been directly responsible for the characteristic vocal style of the blues.
Bonny B. is a Cambodian-Swiss blues musician and harmonica player.
Songhoy Blues is a desert blues music group from Timbuktu, Mali. The band was formed in Bamako after being forced to leave their homes during the civil conflict and the imposition of Sharia law. The band released its debut album, Music in Exile, via Transgressive Records on February 23, 2015, while Julian Casablancas' Cult Records partnered with Atlantic Records to release the album in North America in March 2015. The group is one of the principal subjects of the documentary film They Will Have To Kill Us First.
Dominique Flemons is an American old-time music, Piedmont blues, and neotraditional country multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is a proficient player of the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quills, and rhythm bones. He is known as "The American Songster" as his repertoire of music spans nearly a century of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. He has performed with Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, Guy Davis, and The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.
Solo Cissokho was a Norwegian/Senegalese Jazz and Mbalax musician known for playing the Kora. Born into a Senegalese griot family in Ziguinchor, Casamance, Solo continued the family tradition of Kora playing at a young age.
