Afro Roots World Music - Ben Issacs & Mamadou Sidibe

Experience the sounds of West African music with Ben Isaacs and Mamadou Sidibe filling in for Keenan Webster. 

Master kamale ngoni player, Mamadou Sidibe is from the Wassoulou Region of Mali, West Africa. Thirty years ago Mamadou played a groundbreaking role in transforming the music of this region from it's origins in hunters' sacred melodies--played on six string donso ngoni (hunter's harps)-- to a music of philosophical observations, politics and daily life.

ProfessorSlap (aka Ben Isaacs) has been playing music his whole life. Starting with violin at age 7, he played trumpet, guitar, piano, voice, clarinet and saxophone during his youth. When 19 he was introduced to West-African percussion and started a passionate connection with hand percussion that has grown for the last 36 years.  Ben has worked with school children in various school districts throughout the San francisco Bay Area. For him, music is a language that has no boundaries, and he plays with his full heart and soul behind every note expressed.