ArtBan


Habib Koité
& Bamada

Malian Village Music
Saturday, April 4, 2009
LAXSON AUDITORIUM | 7:30 p.m.

$23 Premium | $18 Adult
$16 Senior | $14 Student/Child

"The biggest pop star of the West African nation of Mali." — Rolling Stone

Malian guitarist Habib Koité has graced the stage at Laxson Auditorium twice before, always to great reviews. In this performance, Habib and his band Bamada will be performing their newest album, Afriki. With more than 250,000 albums sold around the globe, an appearance on the popular television show Late Night with David Letterman, a duet with Bonnie Raitt on her 2002 album Silver Lining, and nearly a thousand concerts on some of the world's most prestigious stages under his belt, Habib Koité is one of Africa's most beloved and popular musicians.

Few African artists have received the sales and media exposure of Habib Koité. Called "Mali's biggest pop star" by Rolling Stone (in an infamous article in which Bonnie Raitt compared Habib to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn), Habib has also received raves from widely-read publications such as People, Entertainment Weekly, and the New York Times. While sales of African music CDs generally struggle to break the 10,000-unit mark, Habib has defied expectations by selling more than 100,000 copies of his last two studio albums, putting him in the upper echelons of world music artist sales.