Omar Sosa - Seckou Keita - Gustavo Ovalles
Origin: Cuba - Sénégal - Vénézuela
Omar Sosa - Seckou Keita - Gustavo Ovalles: a trio of musicians - citizens of the world, full of colour and sound.
Line-up
Omar Sosa - piano, fender rhodes / Seckou Keita - kora, vocal / Gustavo Ovalles - percussions
Artists
About us
Omar Sosa, the Cuban pianist and composer with dazzling performances in both jazz and Afro-Cuban music.
Seckou Keita, Senegalese kora player and singer with a powerful, melodic head voice,
Gustavo Ovalles, the genial Venezuelan percussionist, fabulous with a hollow bamboo and incredible with maracas.
SUBA is the second album by virtuoso pianist Omar Sosa (Cuba) and kora master Seckou Keita (Senegal). The album follows the duo's critically acclaimed debut, Transparent Water (2017).
Written and recorded in 2020 during global containment, SUBA (dawn in Malinke) is a hymn to hope, to a new era of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, and a visceral reiteration of humanity's eternal prayer for global peace and unity.
The Atlantic Ocean separates Cuba and Senegal, the respective birthplaces of Omar Sosa and Seckou Keita, a distance lessened by their shared ancestral link with Africa. When the two men first met in 2012, Seckou loved Omar for his musical spirituality, while Omar saw in Seckou a rare ability to collaborate without losing his identity.
Omar has released over 30 albums in an impressive career, which has included nominations for seven Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards. Seckou is also the winner of several awards, most recently the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year (2019).
On the SUBA album, Omar and Seckou invite the inimitable Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles, who also accompanies them on stage.
SUBA means 'dawn' in Malinké, Seckou's mother tongue. The eleven tracks that make up SUBA are linked by common themes woven throughout the recording. The songs are about friendship and spiritual connection, travel and loss, hope and optimism, dance and the sea... and, of course, a new sunrise.
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