Institute of African American Affairs presents PHOTO: © Bernard Benant © Bernard PHOTO: ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE SPRING 2016 THE PROGRAMS SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2016 | 5:00 PM Cheikh Lô: From Mouridism to Afrobeat An evening with Cheikh Lo in conversation with Professors Mamadou Diouf and C. Daniel Dawson NYU Law School, Vanderbilt Hall - Tishman Auditorium, 1st floor Institute of African American Affairs 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY presents 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 PM Cheikh Lô and Danny Glover: ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE Music and Pan-Africansim SPRING 2016 NYU Law School, Vanderbilt Hall - Greenberg Lounge, 1st floor 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY Danny Glover will engage Cheikh Lô in a discussion of African causes. This concert is FREE and open to the public. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016 | 6:00 PM Cheikh Lô: Africa Live Concert NYU-Skirball Center for the Performing Arts 566 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. THE ARTIST 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 Cheikh Lô brings with him over forty years of making music fused with your seats may be released. Please note that the Skirball box office a variety of sounds from West and Central Africa and is one of the most will close at 6:30 pm on the day of the concert. Limit 2 free tickets per well-known artists coming out of Africa today. The path of Cheikh Lô’s career person. To register for tickets please go to: and the topics covered in his artistic creativity will be further explored and https://tickets.nyu.edu/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=3247 examined during his residency. or nyuiaaa.org/event-items/cheikh-lo-africa-live/ and click on link for tickets. His most recent album Balbalou received the prestigious Artist Award 2015 at Womex (World Music Expo) with lyrical themes exploring concepts of cor- For questions and for more information please contact Skirball at ruption, coups d’état as well as the importance of peace, love and spirituality. 212.998.4941 or [email protected] 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. TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 | 7:00 PM Since then, Lô has worked with various artists exposing him to the musical Cheikh Lô and the Changing-Same: 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, African Music in the Diaspora Youssou N’Dour, Ibrahim Mallouf, Flavia Cohelo, and Fixi. His five international NYU-Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life albums have received resounding success with each ranking number one in C95 Lecture Hall, lower level the top ten in Europe. 238 Thompson Street (between West 3rd Street and Washington Square South), NY, NY 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- Since his debut with the Volta Jazz Burkina Faso’s group Lô has consistently nity in Senegal. worked with artists of different nationalities which explains the Pan- Africanism influences found in his music. To demonstrate that a musical unit A singer, guitarist, percussionist and songwriter his music fuses Jamaican can be done in diversity, Cheikh Lô will spend an evening with various artists reggae, funk, which he mixes with the Senegalese rhythms of mabalax and working in the framework of exchange and experience-sharing. Artists will Ghanaian high-life, playing to the cultural openness of his artistry. include drummer Denardo Coleman, saxophonist T.K. Blue and singer Kaïssa. THE PARTICIPANTS: 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 PHOTO: Lepley © R. Andrew 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. 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. 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 blockbusterLethal 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-nominatedBamako, Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Oscar and Emmy nominated Trouble The Water, and the award winning The Black Power Mixtape PHOTO: Smithfox © Brian Bowen 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. 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.