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Discover Your World at WinspearFor more than forty years, Salif Keita has been the goldsmith of modern Malian music, tirelessly pursuing his craft by extending musical frontiers. Considered a master of West African rhythms and credited as one of the founders of the Afro-pop genre, Keita is world renowned for his unforgettable live performances, soaring vocals and his emotionally-fueled songs. Keita's latest album, La Différence, is dedicated to the struggle of the world albino community, for which Keita has been crusading all his life.
Performance Pricing
Individual performances: $42/ticket (plus applicable service charges).
Group Discount Pricing
15 to 19 tickets: ~10% Discount
20+ tickets: ~15% Discount
Call 780-401-2550 for group tickets.
Call 780-401-2550 for group tickets.
Package Pricing
3 shows for $105, including service charge!
$35/ticket (inclusive of all charges) if purchasing three or more performances from the Winspear Presents Series in a single order. Call the box office at 780-428-1414 to order your package. Package not available for purchase online.
Artist Info
Salif Keita
For more than forty years Salif Keita has been the goldsmith of modern Malian music, tirelessly pursuing his craft by extending musical frontiers in a constant quest for new ways to make records; and his own music has multiplied its overtures to the world around him...
In the course of his travels—and encounters—Salif Keita never put aside his Mande roots and culture. A pioneering singer and composer, Salif made his first appearance in the avant-garde of music thanks to his vocal exploits with the Rail Band and the Ambassadeurs, two of the greatest Malian orchestras of the Seventies, before he became one of the great revelations of the nascent world music genre after his solo debut with the album Soro in 1987.
After such later classics as Moffou in 2002 and M’Bemba in 2005, today he beautifully brings the decade to a close with La Différence, the third chapter of his acoustic trilogy released by Universal Jazz. The record is not only one of the most moving albums of his career, but also one of his most politically committed, and it was recorded for the most part in Paris, with other sessions taking place in Bamako, Mali (in his own studio named Le Moffou), Djoliba (the village on the banks of the river Niger where Salif was born), Los Angeles and Beirut.
Salif Keita is a man in perpetual motion. Instead of remaining hidebound in tradition (albeit a tradition mastered to perfection), Salif Keita has stayed on the edge where musical evolution is concerned, and particularly the technology that makes evolution possible... and his new album, the jewel in a crown of sumptuous arrangements, proves it, together with a crew of loyal musicians both new and old who surround Salif in closed ranks.
Salif derives his artistic strength mainly from his permanent search for self-renewal, both in his lyrics and music, but also in song. His voice makes him capable of interpreting true emotions, whether singing in Malinka, Bambara or French. Always looking for the best possible sound, he never wavers in alternating these languages in his search for poetic accuracy. It's not the least of his paradoxes that Salif's noble status—his Keita lineage—prohibited him using Griot techniques as a singer (and even from pronouncing their words).
As a descendant of the illustrious Emperor Soundjata Keita, whose 13th century empire stretched from the Atlantic ocean to the confines of the Sahara and the Gulf of Guinea, Salif Keita is today the symbol of an Africa proud of its roots and history, yet an Africa perfectly ready to cast itself into the world of globalisation in search of a modernity as rampant as it is elusive.
Born an albino, Salif Keita had a clear skin-colour that was an ill omen in the ancestral Mali where he grew into a man. "I'm a black man, my skin is white and I like it, it's my difference / I'm a white man, my blood is black, I love that, it's the difference that's pretty", he sings in La différence, the title-track from his album and its first single. He says it all in this hymn to tolerance, a song in which he expresses his artistic convictions as he has rarely done before.
The Foundation "Salif Keïta pour les albinos"
"In Africa, being born an albino is dramatic," says Salif. The lack of an educational system in a country such as Mali, where the population is more than three-quarters illiterate, does much to explain the continued existence of disastrous beliefs concerning albinos. Since 2001, the Foundation known as Salif Keïta pour les albinos has been working to increase large-scale awareness of this issue in Mali, and refute obscurantist-beliefs that albinos are cursed. The Foundation provides care and assistance to albinos, together with protection against the sun, their worst enemy after indifference. Add comment
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