News for 2010! Xalam is going back out on the road in April and May, to participate in the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of Senegals Independence & the Monument to the Resistance, the 350 years of the founding of Saint-Louis, and a gala evening, before moving to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Check out the dates on the Tour page. We’ve also added the subjects of the songs on Gorée and on 2A@Z (in French and English), since we’ve had requests for translations of certain song lyrics; literal translations don’t exist for the moment, so we hope this will help somewhat. More to come soon… Also, follow Xalam on their Facebook group!
News for 2009: Xalam performed an unforgetful concert, which was recorded in front of thousands at the Iba Mar Diop Stadium in Dakar on April 30th (reviews to come in the Press section… videos of Kaniane and Lémmé now in our Music section!), with a couple of warm-up shows at Just4U. The band has released their Best of 2A@Z, a double CD with 30 entirely remastered tracks. If you would like to purchase a copy, the disc is only available at the moment by contacting Awa N’Diaye at JUST4U in Dakar, phone: +221/77535-4693. They are still working on a new studio album; plusa live DVD, to be released later this year! Other big news, next year marks the 40th Anniversary for the group, so Gala stadium concerts are already being planned in Dakar for 2010.
Xalam’s 2008 reunion concerts were a huge success! After a smaller show in Saint-Louis (Ndar) on the 14th of August, Xalam played to record crowds of more than 20,000 each night in Dakar on the 15th and 16th of August. Building on this impetus, Xalam recently played some concerts in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and then in Senegal, in November and December of 2008 and January 2009. These dates, and projected future concerts, most recently in Johannesburg South Africa and Lebanon, may be found on the Tour page.
Some press articles in French about the reunion shows in Dakar in August have been added, soon to be translated into English.
Weve now added a forum/message board for all family, friends and fans of Xalam to exchange ideas, information, impressions about Xalam.
Other breaking news, their CD Apartheid has at long last been re-released by Celluloid! in France and is now available. Even more exciting, their legendary unreleased concert at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland is finally being released! Live à Montreux was released on the first of July, 2008, in CD format. Check out the Discography section to see the cover. If it becomes available through Amazon.fr, we will have a link in the Buy CDs section for purchasing this CD through Amazon from our site.
Taffa Cissé has created his own personal web site. He is also touring with the Jean-Luc Ponty Group and can be seen on Jean-Luc’s website. He leads percussion workshops across Europe and Africa, and can be seen on sites such as www.afrodrum.ch and www.djembe.ch/ (both in German).
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