Toure Kunda
A ten-piece Senegalese band, Toure Kunda were formed in Paris in 1979 by the four Toure brothers Amadou, Sixu, Ousmane and Ismaila; in the Senegalese Soninke language, kunda means family. From the start, Toure Kunda's fusion of traditional Senegalese music and sophisticated western instrumentation found a massive audience amongst both expatriate Africans and native French music fans, and the group's debut TOURE KUNDA established them as major figures on the French pop scene. By the time of TURU, they were able to fill stadia the size of London's Earls Court in most French cities. At the heart of Toure Kunda's music are rhythms and melodies from a Senegalese coming-of-age ceremony called Djamba Dong, which features traditional drums and percussion and the West African harp known as the kora. Combined with electric guitars, horns and synthesizer the music has resonances of reggae, calypso, salsa, highlife and afrobeat, which explains its appeal across the spectrum of expatriate Africans and West Indians in France. The fusion came to full maturity on the 1983 AMADOU TILO, a tribute to Amadou Toure, who died early that year. 
In 1984, the group set off on a hugely successful West African tour, which lasted four months and took them to Senegal, Mali, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Mauritania and Guinea. A double album, LIVE, was recorded during the tour and released later in the year, alongside a new studio set CASAMANCE AU CLAIR DE LUNE. By this time, the group was consistently selling in excess of 100,000 copies for each album release and felt confident enough of their appeal to experiment with their style. Drafting in New York avant-funk producer Bill Laswell, they recorded NATALIA, a fusion of their established style with electro-funk drum and percussion tracks. A bold experiment, the set was savaged by the French critics, who accused Laswell of cultural imperialism and the group of misjudgement—and sold the relatively small amount of 50,000 copies. For the rest of the '80s, Toure Kunda reverted to their pre-NATALIA style, and in 1990 released the superb SALAM, which with LIVE and AMADOU TILO is arguably one of their finest achievements to date.