Tag Archive for: Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba

SPP Newsletter: HippieFest, Parade logistics, Mambo, Golden Belt, Drink Local and Shows We Love

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Late FALL still had that summer fun vibe–what’s on the horizon for 2019?
See this covered stage, called SummerStage and a 100+ year-old smoke stack? This is the historic, newly-unveiled Golden Belt Campus in Durham, and a view you can’t see from Main Street. There are residential options, dozens of artist studios inside, Hi-Wire Brewing just opened, parking is plentiful and Cicely Mitchell of So When Do I Clap? is curating this stage next year!
Less than a month after AfroPunk reviewed a video from her forthcoming album, Good Luck America, Kamara Thomas traded her trademark “Cosmic Americana” comfort zone to channel Aretha Franklin last weekend. (Phil Cook’s Given Family/Chosen Family project at Motorco Music Hall.)
Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba open for Weedie Braimah Wednesday, December 12. Click here for $15 tickets to this all-ages 8 p.m. show at Pinhook. Braimah, a phenomenally talented and highly sought-after Djembe Fola whose vision is to build a reverence for folkloric West African music in hopes of it evolving and being placed in the world musical arenas of jazz, funk, fusion, world music, and hip-hop, is a new face of African percussion both nationally and internationally. Kaira Ba is also closing out 2018 with a BANG. They’re playing both the early countdown and late night stage at First Night Raleigh, New Year’s Eve.
Batalá Durham and Paperhand Puppet Intervention led a people’s parade on November 30 from American Tobacco to CCB Plaza to light a huge tree across from the Unscripted Hotel. Downtown Durham Inc. contracted Sonic Pie Productions for a 2nd year, to curate talent, provide sound production services and assist with logistics.
Shows we love/gossip/drink local: did you hear Sam Bush AND Taj Mahal are playing Isis Music Hall in West Asheville? (No, not the same night, silly) It’s a gorgeous, intimate venue.

Do you like to “drink local”? Have you tried Mystic bourbon or Oak City amarettoyet? They’re about $25 a bottle, Triangle-based, hand-crafted and SO good, especially on the 29 degree nights.
Sonic Pie Productions is THRILLED to have signed a 2nd-year sound production services/modular staging contract with Hippie Fest. We’ll be returning to Ohio, South Carolina and Salisbury, NC in 2019!

Third Friday Durham, Durham’s monthly “gallery crawl” continues with a winter branding for January-March 2019. THANK YOU, EVERYONE, FOR A GREAT 2018!
OTHER UPCOMING SPP CONCERTS & EVENTS

Threads of Africa at NC Museum of Art

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To conclude their Threads of Africa celebration and the 20th anniversary summer concert series, the North Carolina Museum of Art presents a free concert by Angélique Kidjo with Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, hailed by Time magazine as “Africa’s premier diva.” Kidjo blends the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk, and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. A three-time Grammy winner, Kidjo is admired throughout the world.

Opening for Angélique Kidjo is Diali Cissokho, a griot born to a family of professional musicians in Senegal, who currently makes his home in North Carolina. Cissokho is a master of the kora, a traditional West African instrument with strings and a skin-and-gourd resonator. Cissokho and his band Kaira Ba have created an electrifying style of West African dance music that has attracted a fervent following.