Palm Pictures Presents “Palm World Voices: Baaba Maal”

Palm World Voices, is a new series of CD and DVD releases that invites music lovers to completely immerse themselves in the vibrant imagery, history, culture, and terrain of musically rich areas of our globe. From to India to the Middle East to Africa to Brazil, each release is a definitive collection.

The deluxe packages are a deep, multi-media exploration into the roots of the music and include a DVD featuring documentary footage and a 50-page book filled with photography and essays, as well as a geographic and cultural map designed by National Geographic Society. Palm World Voices takes us across the world on an exotic expedition once reserved only for the very few, celebrating the journey as much as the music.

Senegal’s shining star and the voice of his people in a country with an embarrassment of musical riches - Baaba Maal was also Palm’s debut artist. Fusing traditional African music with elements of pop and reggae, Baaba Maal’s signature sound led the globe-sweeping wave now known as ‘Afro-pop.’

Baaba Maal was not born into Senegal’s griot caste of artists, so he defied convention by pursuing music instead of fishing the river where he grew up. But music was an integral part of his early childhood, thanks to the songs his mother created to educate him. Winning an art scholarship to the city of Dakar, he fell in with a 70-strong group of musicians before striking out with a friend on an exhaustive trek across West Africa, in search of music. He continued his education, studying theory and composition at a Parisian conservatory, and when he returned, he started his own band. His musical world grew as he listened to the music of the African diaspora, American artists like James Brown, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, and Jamaican artists like Toots Hibbert, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, who toured Senegal in the mid-seventies.

This compilation CD showcases his career from his electrifying debut to his status as one of Africa’s top stars.

A 60 minute DVD featuring Baaba Maal performances, interviews, and journeys through the Senegal’s spectacular landscape and culture of art.

A beautiful 48-page book stacked wtih dozens of photos, accompanying an essay by acclaimed British journalist Robin Denselow.

A full-sized geographic and cultural map of Senegal that traces Baaba Maal’s life, designed exclusively by the National Geographic Society for this release.