Ismaël Lô, vocal, acoustic guitar, harmonica
Youssou Camara, drums
Samba Laobé Ndiayé, bass guitar
Ass Malick Diouf, solo guitar
El Hadj Fayé, sabar percussion
Ousmane Wade, keyboards
Babacar Dieng and Awa Maïga, chorus
Ismaël Lô was born on 30 August 1956 at Dongo Buti, the homeland of his Peul mother in Nigeria. His father was a Wolof, a Senegalese civil servant posted to Niamey. Ismaël grew up at Rufisque near Dakar, to where his family had moved--a place where it was assumed that music was the Griots' business. The young boy started playing all by himself, cobbling together guitars from tin cans and fishing-line. For a long time he played the harmonica, fixing it to the wall with a couple of nails so he could also handle his guitar. His older brother collected Otis Redding records, Jimi Hendrix, Wilson Pickett. The musical framework was set. When his father died in 1970, Ismaël spent a short while at the Dakar Institut des Arts, before launching his musical career with one of his brothers as manager. At fourteen, he accompanied himself on two instruments at once on a television show ; viewers loved him. "It was the audience that pushed me into a musical career." Fresh from this success, guitar under his arm and harmonica in his pocket, loudspeaker on the roof of their bush-taxi, they set off, on the road in Senegal.
In Gambia, he met up with the Super Diamono from Dakar, which Ismaël was to join a year later in 1979. He livened up the group's image with a fresh repertoire, and turned it towards a more jazz-oriented m'balax. They recored several albums together, among them Darami and Mabamba . In 1984, he embarked on a solo career. He formed his own group, with the well-known Dakar guitarist Vieux Fayé, former Diamono saxophonist Sélé Thiam, and Thio Mbaye, who had previously been percussionist with the Ballets d'Afrique Noire. He produced four albums in five years. Xalat , recorded in France, ensured him a leading position in African hit-parades and with Radio France Internationale.
In 1990 he brought out the Ismaël Lô album. "Taja Bone" was a European hit, and he signed with Barclay on the strength of it. That same year, he gave his first non-African concert at the Musiques Métisses Festival in Angoulême. Afrique Sunu came out in 1991 on the Ilporo label, the name of Ismaël Lô's own Dakar production company.
Known as "Iso" in Senegal, he lives in a Dakar suburb because that is where he finds his inspiration, where he feels "more at ease than anywhere else in the world. The atmosphere in this country, the street parties, the wedding ceremonies, the baptisms, all these little things give life to my spirit. I need these warm people, these neighbours, this feeling of togetherness." Author of ballads sung mostly in Wolof , but also in Saussé, Serer, French and Bambara, Ismaël Lô has been called the most "folk" of Senegalese singers, the "Dylan of Africa".
His latest album, called simply Iso , brings together a dozen titles of varying origin : blues from the Sahel, the influence of the southern Casamance region with the presence of Ousmane Touré (of Touré Kunda), and m'balax. Iso deals with various subjects : the distress of children whose parents are separated, arranged marriages--and, in "Senegambia", politics, which pillories the artificial boundaries of the old colonial carve-up. In "Nassarané", Ismaël Lô pays tribute to the Senegalese marksmen incorporated into the French army during World War Two :
Victors, you have known glory
But when you got home, no gold or silver awaited you
Oh grandfather, if the war leaders
Had been worthy of you
You would not have had to wait for their thanks
When will black men's suffering cease?
With God at our side, will it one day stop?
One of the songs also featured in the film "Thiaroye Camp" by the Senegalese film-director Sambène Ousmane (Thiaroye is where Senegalese veterans who protested against not being paid were interned). "Wassalia" is a traditional prayer of the Tidjania people, which Iso selected as a tribute to his grandfather, El Hadj Abdou Asis Sy : "It's a way for me to talk about Muslims. As a musician, I sing only what I feel in myself, and I don't think I have done any harm with this number. In any case, harm or not, only God can tell."
