Baaba Maal

(* 12 November 1953 in Podor) is a Senegalese singer, guitarist and percussionist. Under the influence of his friend and family griot [a=Mansour Seck] he devoted himself to learning music from his mother and his school's headmaster and then went on to study music at the university in Dakar and postgraduate on a scholarship at Beaux-Arts in Paris. Baaba sings primarily in Pulaar and is the foremost promoter of the traditions of the Pulaar-speaking peoples who live on both sides of the Senegal River.