Abdou Diop

Against the wishes of his family, Abdou Diop joined the Senegalese army as a musician. A Pulaar speaker from the town of Kolda in the Casamance region of the south, he was not from a musical family and had only started singing publicly in his late teens.
But in the army he was stationed in the capital Dakar and there, for the first time, directly exposed to the popular, more percussive music as performed by the predominantly Wolof speaking musicians of the north. It was heady stuff.
However, after being introduced to fellow Pulaar speaker Baaba Maal by Hilaire Chaby-Hary, Baaba's keyboard player also from Kolda, Abdou became convinced that he should to stick to his southern roots and his career blossomed. Working the club circuit of Dakar he caught the attention of an influential radio DJ, Michael Soumah, and by the late 90s was tasting success for the first time.
Although the well-spring of Abdou's music lies in the south, in, among other traditions, the melodies of wandering shepherds or the music that accompanies wrestling competitions, his travelling and contact with other musicians has given him a unique sound and a fierce desire to record and express the values that are dear to rural life in the Casamance. Today, with his mottos of hard work, love and peace, Abdou has become a musical ambassador for that region. Welcome to his world.