Cheikh Lô

With his trademark dreadlocks, colourful robes and seductive songs, Cheikh Lô is one of the great mavericks of African music – a superb singer and songwriter as well as a guitarist, percussionist and drummer. He has personalised and distilled a variety of influences from West and Central Africa, to create a style that is uniquely his own. It’s constantly fluid and shifting, but always animated by the snap and rattle of his drums.

Lô was born in 1955 to Senegalese parents in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. At 21 he started singing and playing percussion with Orchestra Volta Jazz. In 1981 he moved to Dakar, Senegal where he played drums for the singer, Ouza, before joining the house band at the Hotel Savana, drumming and singing an international repertoire

In 1984 he moved to Paris for two years to work as a session drummer before returning  to Senegal. He released his first cassette  Doxandeme (Immigrants) in 1990 and it caught the attention of the country’s best-known musician Youssou N’Dour, who had released his own similarly titled Immigrés in France in 1984.  Hearing Lô’s new songs, Youssou said “I found something in his voice that’s like a voyage through Burkina, Niger, Mali”. In August 1995 they went to work in Youssou’s Xippi Studio in Dakar on the album Ne La Thiass, his stunning debut, featuring Youssou on a couple of tracks.

Ne La Thiass was released internationally on World Circuit in 1996 (and re-mastered and re-released in 2018) and was followed by his debut tour in Europe with his own band. 

Cheikh’s second album Bambay Gueej (World Circuit), released in 1999, was co-produced by Nick Gold and Youssou N’Dour in Dakar with international guests including Oumou Sangare (on ‘Bobo-Dioulasso’), Cuban charanga flautist Richard Egües and sax player Pee Wee Ellis (from James Brown’s band).

This eclectic mix was furthered on Lamp Fall (World Circuit, 2005) by his discovery of Brazilian sounds and rhythms and he travelled to Bahia, to work with acclaimed producer Alê Siqueira (Tribalistas, Omara Portuondo). These Brazilian recordings were coupled with sessions recorded in Dakar and London.

For the next few years Lô withdrew from the international stage and immersed himself in the Dakar scene playing regularly with his own band which is reflected in Jamm (World Circuit, 2010).  His blend of semi-acoustic flavours – West and Central African,  Cuban, flamenco – were once again distilled into his signature sound.

In 2015 Lô released Balbalou (Chapter Two) which, he says, “returns to the importance of spirituality, at a time when hateful groups like Boko Haram are diverting Islam away from its humanist foundations”. The Mourides are the most powerful of the Sufi brotherhoods in Senegal who use music as a means of spreading love and tolerance.

Lô is a devotee of Cheikh Ibra Fall (1855-1930) whose followers, the Baye Fall, are typically dressed in patchwork clothes. Wherever his musical journeys take him, with Cheikh Lô there’s always music dedicated to Baye Fall and a laid-back groove.