WOMAD

Urban Grooves

18:00 8th May on the Las Veletas

Bibi was born in Bangui in Central African Republic and from early days has absorbed the influences from his own African roots as well as from his heroes, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone and Fela Kuti. From Gospel to Hip Hop he has become an ardent creator of an urban music that uses samples and electro tinged vocals to create a sound, reflecting the cosmopolitan groove of Paris today. Find out how Bibi has developed his genre and how musical collaborations have ignited his creative expression.

Bibi Tanga and The Selenites Biography

Rulebook-ignoring esoterica from Africa via Paris

When the music of Bibi Tanga wafts in your general direction, it's quite easy to visualise his record collection. You imagine there's plenty of Curtis Mayfield and Sly Stone in there, packed in alongside the albums of Fela Kuti, Franco, Gil Scott-Heron and Arrested Development. But that these inspirations are clearly discernible isn't a criticism. Sure, he jumps around all over the shop - funk, soul, hip-hop, Afrofunk - but this is no scattergun approach. Instead Bibi, born in the Central African Republic but raised in the Parisian suburbs, moulds these influences to create something both invigorating and bearing his own signature. And that his music, unleashed over the course of three albums thus far, finds a kindred spirit in Sun Ra's cosmic Afrofuturism is born out by the derivation of his band's name - The Selenites were the moon-dwelling civilisation in HG Wells' The First Men In The Moon.
(Biography supplied by Nige Tassell 2010)