Juldeh Camara

• Genre: World Pop

About

Juldeh Camara already had a pretty respectable resume before embarking on the project that would earn him an international reputation. A second-generation Gambian griot (musical storyteller), he was renowned in both Fula society (Camara is Fulani) and throughout the African music world as a master musician and virtuoso on the riti, a one-stringed fiddle used in griot traditions. After Camara moved to the U.K., where he worked as a musician, a friend gave him a copy of Desert Road, an album by Justin Adams, a British guitarist with a dedicated interest in African music (he also worked with Tinariwen). He picked up the phone and called Adams, and a beautiful partnership was born. The two shared some of their favorite music with each other: Western rock, blues and roots, traditional griot music, Afro-pop, desert blues. They also began jamming together, re-creating live the musical trajectories that continued to overlap those genres. The result was 2008's critically acclaimed Soul Science, which was followed in 2009 by Tell No Lies.

- Rachel Devitt