Awarded the title of “Cultural Ambassador of Flanders”, the Zita Swoon Group was founded in 1993 by Stef Kamil Carlens, previously well known as a founding member of dEUS. Initially, the group went by the name of A Beatband, then Moondog Jr., before finally settling on Zita Swoon – words meaning “intense desire” – under which moniker they have released 11 albums to date. Carlens has always shown openness towards African music, but we had to wait until the release of the album Wait for Me last year for this tendency to find its full expression. With the support of an Antwerp-based organisation, the singer and guitarist travelled to Burkina Faso three years ago, where she met balafon player Mamadou Diabeté and singer Awa Démé. Both were born into families of “griot” storyteller-musicians, placing on them the obligation to eschew the easy path to success and remain in their villages to record in song the everyday hunger, thirst and hopeless longing for escape of the local people. Deeply moved by Démé’s raw singing and Diabeté’s rapturous balafon playing, Carlens was almost immediately able to begin a musical communication rising above language barriers. From this collaboration emerged the album Wait for Me in 2012, in which West African Manding music is magically blended into the distinctive rhythm and blues sound of the Zita Swoon Group.

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