A collaboration between one of Cuba's most prolific jazz artists, pianist Omar Sosa, and Senegalese kora maestro Seckou Keita. SUBA, 'sunrise' in Mandinka, is the second album from piano virtuoso Omar Sosa (Cuba) and kora master and singer Seckou Keita (Senegal). Written and recorded in 2020 during the global lockdown, SUBA is a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, and a visceral reiteration of humanity's perennial prayer for peace and unity. Omar and Seckou's debut album Transparent Water has toured worldwide since 2017 to enormous critical acclaim. They are again accompanied on this tour and album by Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles.
Seven-time Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Omar Sosa has been passionately interested in exploring African musical cultures and their connections with his Afro-Cuban roots throughout his career, subtly blending traditional and contemporary sounds on many of his recordings.
Seckou Keita has arguably become the most influential and inspiring Kora player of his generation, an exceptional and charismatic musician and a modern global citizen, with seven centuries of tradition and heritage expressed through his music. Omar Sosa is a musician extraordinaire; composer, arranger, pianist, percussionist, improvisatore and communicator. His Afro-Cuban based mix of jazz and world music is broadly expressive - full of power and passion, subtlety and grace. He has recorded and released more than thirty albums across a career that has spanned four decades.
In a career spanning almost thirty years Seckou has collaborated with Francis Fuster, Baka Beyond, Martin Simpson, Mamady Keita, AKA Trio and The Lost Words project. His releases with harpist Catrin Finch - Clychau Dibon (2013) and SOAR (2018) - have reaped Best Album awards in Songlines, fRoots and topped Transglobal World Music Charts. Both Omar and Seckou have become master collaborationists, in the best sense of the word, open-minded yet culturally self-secure, generous yet exacting. SUBA offers a rare type of magic - as Africa and Cuba unite across the vast expanse of the ocean between them - the kora scatters handfuls of light on the waves, the piano ploughs its furrow and, here and there, the dignity of a mellow, unhurried grace.