The Senegalese group Orchestra Baobab celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, with a little delay. Still standing despite the disappearance of several members, he gave a concert in Dakar on Friday March 10 in the evening to mark the occasion. For RFI, Juliette Dubois met the musicians of the old and the new generation, determined to perpetuate the heritage of the baobab.
With our correspondent in Dakar, Juliet Dubois
It was in 1970, in the Baobab club in Dakar, that the group was formed. Cuban sounds, Wolof and Serer songs… A beautiful cocktail that will experience a second youth in the 2000s, after a 15-year break.
The anniversary postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic is finally celebrated this year. The opportunity to pay tribute to the missing members of Orchestra Baobab. But no question of touching the style and identity of the group.
” All the producers ask us to preserve the very identity of the Baobab. Its very important. But we tend towards modernity all the same. We have a new generation, our children. There will be a touch of modernity “, explains Thierno Koité, the conductor of the group
Among the newcomers, there is René Sowatche, alias Boléro, who joined the group in 2016: “ At the beginning, I admit that it was still a bit hot to cover the songs, the classics like Utru Horas, Jiin Ma Jiin Ma… The legend of Barthélémy Attisso left a legacy that I had wanted to discover. »
fifty years later, the Orchestra Baobab is therefore more rooted than ever. Yakhya Fall, guitarist, assures: ” The Baobab is eternal, that’s obvious. Because when you cut a root, it grows back. When you cut a branch, it grows back. »
The Eternal Baobab will be touring Europe again in June, and a new album is under discussion…