YAYA DIALLO'S West African KANZA Music Band

Yaya Diallo's West African Kanza music to be released on Onzou Records. The album Live at Club Soda, recorded in 1989 in Montreal with his band Kanza, features saxophone, electric violin, bass and lead guitars, drumset, vocals and traditional African drum music.

Yaya Diallos band Kanza presents a genre of music relatively new in African culture on his upcoming album Live at Club Soda. The following excerpt from the liner notes gives some background:

Kanza is a very new concept within the Minianka musical culture. … This kind of music is a mix of the past and the present. It lets the door open for the future. …

The professions and the social values change. It is more and more difficult to motivate the young people today with ancestral songs. It is time to create a new style of music which can reconcile the elders and the young people. In the 50s, people from the villages of Djélé, NTosso and Nampropéla created the concept of KANZA. Groups of workers and farmers decided to mix the ancestral music with the music of young people.

New musical ensembles are born in Miniankala. Samba The Trucker" is a good example of this new era. To be a trucker is a new profession for us in Africa, so that needs a new music.

So, whats new?

The new elements of Kanza are:
The speed of the music, you have to play fast.
The mix of different kinds of sounds
The dance for everyone, no age, no gender divisions.
More room for creativity and improvisation, but one must respect the
basic foundations of the music: no folly, no madness.

In appreciation of your support during record distributor CD Babys promotion, purchasers of Yaya Diallos classic 1980 album Nangape from CD Baby, http://www.cdbaby.com/yayadiallo, during the month of August will receive a complimentary copy of Yaya Diallos upcoming album Live at Club Soda upon its release planned for November, 2003 from Onzou Records. Visit Onzou Records for details, http://www.onzou.com.

Yaya Diallo, master drummer, musician, teacher, lecturer, storyteller, healer, "Healing Drum Tours" guide to Mali, author and native of Mali, West Africa is a major custodian of West African culture.

Onzou Records collaborates with Yaya Diallo in the production of his music and other projects including the creation of traditional African healing centers, beginning with one in Bamako, Mali, to provide a base for transmitting traditional knowledge and culture to future generations.

Listen to Yaya Diallos music on New Music Canada, http://www.newmusiccanada.com/artist/cfm?Band_id=7862

For articles by Yaya Diallo visit theYahoo site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yaya_diallo. A new series of articles titled Djembe Drum Music – Yaya Diallo Interrupts the Silence" will be posted begining with an article titled Djembe and Djembefola."

Best,

Stephen

Stephen Conroy, Producer
Yaya Diallo's West African Music
Onzou Records, http://www.onzou.com