Bamba Wassoulou Groove - intense dance music with spiritual undertones. Guitar solos are a Malian variant of psychedelia. The Wassoulou region, which is the domain of hunters, has a key role on the musical map of Mali. The songs are part of magical nocturnal rituals, which aim not only to enchant the hunted game, but also, by means of trance, to bring the hunters into a parallel reality and strengthen their perception. We know the music of Wassoulou from the singers Oumou Sangare and Na Hawa Dumbie. Both of them performed in Prague as part of Respect Festival.

The Bamba Wassoulou Groove was born in Bamako in 2013 on the initiative of Bamba Dembélé, (who passed in 2018) percussionist and co-founder of the Super Djata Band, mythical group of Zani Diabaté, the most original and funky guitarist of music of Mali after independence. The Bamba Wassoulou Groove is composed of 6 musicians (three guitars,one bass, a drum and a singer) and is here to create a real wall of sound. Solis with Hendrixian virtuosos, trance voice, evil bass and drum sections, the band is a heavy dance machine who electrifies the Malian music and recreates the excitement of the hot nights in Bamako.

The 6 members of Bamba Wassoulou Groove know the power of those hypnotic, spiralling Malian guitars. There are no fewer than three six-string wizards in their line-up, their combined playing building a wall of sound that effortlessly transports you to the dusty roads and red earth of Mali. Several members earned their stripes in the magnificent – nay, revolutionary – Super Rail Band, the musicians who were not only acclaimed as gods right across West Africa, but who were also the resident turn at the hotel at Bamako’s central station, where they’d play all night long under the stars. Both bands share a love of those fluid, floating guitar lines but, as their name suggests, this younger outfit like to up the tempo at times, while also adding an edgier, more psychedelic edge. The next heroes of West African music are ready for their coronation.