Élage Diouf

CENTRE STAGE
SATURDAY 12:00pm-12:45pm

SOUTH STAGE
SUNDAY 3:15pm-4:00pm

Master percussionist, author, composer and performer Élage Diouf moved from Senegal to Quebec, Canada a quarter century ago to pursue a music career that continues to flourish today. He first became known for his countless collaborations, notably with André ‘Dédé’ Fortin and his band Les Colocs. Diof’s music, a hybrid of pop, world, blues, folk and the Yorubian genre called asiko, is at the artistic crossroads of figures such as Carlinhos Brown and Peter Gabriel. Because of the musicality of the language, he sings mainly in Wolof, his mother tongue.

Élage’s 2010 debut Askil won him a JUNO for Best World Music Album, and he found a global audience as the featured drummer with Cirque du Soleil for their touring show Delirium. In recent years, he’s also toured as the guest artist of internationally renowned musician Johnny Reid. But despite his long exile from Africa, Élage has not lost touch with his Wolof roots, and on his third solo album, titled Wutiko, he mixes Youssou N’Dour-style Afro-pop balladry, thundering sabar and tama drumming, and traditional call-and-response folk chats with melodic Western pop and soft-rock influences. Élage says," Wutiko is my travel bag in which I find my challenges, my quests, my successes, my pitfalls, my acceptances...”