Badara Seck
VOICE
Badara Seck
Senegal/Italy
Badara Seck was born on 5th March 1970 in Senegal, descending from a Griots’ family, the custodians of the Art and the word of Africa. When he was very young he started travelling all around the world with his voice and stories, then with his songs and music composed by himself. He moved to Canada, middle-west Africa, Switzerland, Italy and other European countries together with long stays in his motherland when he continued playing his role of musician and Griot, to treasure his international experience.
He’s living in Rome since 1998 and he has been the main contact between the Senegalese community and the Italian authorities.
He took part to several international and Italian festivals and he was chosen as substitute of the great Miriam Makeba, as soloist voice of the famous Messa Luba.
in 2000 he participated at the event Africa Poesia in Rome and Florence, together with di Francis Bebey, poet, musician, writer and “totemic” figure of the African culture. He was one of the main personalities of the multilinguistic event Hypertext-Ulisse, by the composer Luigi Cinque, supplied by the Eurupean Community within the project Euro-Mediterraneo.
He’s been collaborating with Massimo Ranieri for 5 years, taking part to his concerts and experienced a great collaboration with the master Ennio Morricone. He worked with other Italian artists as well, like Mauro Pagani, Paolo Fresu and Pino Daniele. Badara Seck is part of the new generation of the Griots who travelled the world without giving up their identity nor their active role in Africa’a and Africans’ transformations and his songs and musical projects are an extraordinary evidence of that.
He’s the creator of the project RungPung, set up for Fabbrica Europa in 2004 in Firenze it is a synthesis of his existence, his ideas, his extraordinary artistic and professional experience. Several African musicians, drummers and dancers who are living in Italy joined his work and express their great talent. RungPung is an interdisciplinary, interafrican, multicultural project with its roots in the traditional African world but capable of sending his messages to all the migrants, and using languages that migrants met in west Europe.
Badara Seck is one of the protagonists of the first two editions of the Festival au Desert in Florence, an event with the aim of giving a new image of Africa like context that can innovate without denying its history and that is able to influence the world with its old musical traditions combined with innovative sounds met in Europe.
Badara Seck was one of the International Artist guests of the Festival au Desert in Mali in 2012.
In 2014 he played together for the first time with Ismaila Mbaye and the Africa Penc at Teatro Palladium to open “Festa d’Africa”, an International Festival of Contemporary Africa’s cultures in Rome.
