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Global Thursdays is now Global FRIDAYS!
Janka Nabay and the
Bubu Gang
7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21
$10/$9 Museum Members
Lower Level Auditorium, AANM
13624 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI
Janka Nabay is the undisputed king of bubu, a frantically paced dance music with ancient, magical origins in his native Sierra Leone. A superstar there since the mid 1990s, Nabay saw his music become a political football during a bloody civil war, so he came to America in 2002. The Bubu Gang is the posse of musical collaborators Nabay has hooked up with in the U.S. – Doug Shaw (Gang Gang Dance, Highlife, White Magic), Jason McMahon and Jonathan Leland (Skeletons), Michael Gallope (Starring) and vocalist Boshra Al-Saadi – to create a wild, high-octane juggernaut of call-and-response vocal interplay, juddering dancefloor rhythms, synths and guitars. These exciting new sounds draw as much from bubu as they do from the sunny energy of Ghanaian highlife, the extended improvisations of ‘70s Miles Davis, the hypnotic rhythms of classic Afrobeat and the swirling echoes of ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelia.
The group financed its critically acclaimed 2011 appearance at the South by Southwest Festival with a Kickstarter campaign; its current national tour stopped at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, among other venues. The self-released EP An Letah was issued last spring; a full-length CD, En Yay Sah, on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, was released this summer.
Click HERE to watch a video and HERE to listen to the Aug. 21 profile of the group on NPR's All Things Considered.
“…the music evokes a street parade that keeps collecting passersby and growing… a delirious wig-out.”
Katjusa Cisar, consequenceofsound.net
“…tight and fresh, an intoxicating mixture of afropop, electronic music and indy jazz.”
-Michael May, Texas Observer
View other Global Fridays performances
October 19 - M.A.K.U. Sound System
