The story
Tony Vacca and Massamba Diop first met when Vacca opened for Baaba Maal. The friendship that began there grew into the Senegal-America Project, bringing musicians together for performances, recordings and school workshops in Senegal and the United States. With Fusion Nomads, that longstanding connection becomes a full-band collaboration.
Vacca plays balafon, gongs and percussion and brings spoken word into the mix. Diop joins him on the tama, the Senegalese talking drum. Around them are John Sheldon on electric and acoustic guitar, Charles Langford on saxophone, Chris Devine on electric violin, and Jo Sallins on electric bass, percussion and keyboard. The music draws on jazz, funk and blues alongside Senegalese rhythms, with space for the players to take it somewhere of their own.
“Diop is an ebullient show unto himself.”
Diop's sound may already be familiar from his work with Baaba Maal or the Black Panther films. Here, he joins a circle of collaborators whose shared history gives the music a personal foundation. Vacca describes Fusion Nomads as a way to hear how rhythmic and melodic patterns connect, and this lineup gives that idea a very particular sound.
Come hear what this friendship sounds like with the whole band.