TOURE KUNDA In 1973 Ismaila Toure left his native Casamance to see the world and explore its music, eventually arriving two years later in Paris where he worked in community service and played charity concerts before inviting his younger brother Sixu Tidiane to join him in 1977. That same year they played their first concert at Pantin before going on to a residency at the Theatre Dunois in Paris. On the strength of their live success they released their debut album ISMAILA and SIXU and invited two of their brothers to join them to create TOURE KUNDA. Over the next two years they toured extensively and in 1979 they released their first album on Celluloid which went gold like their four subsequent albums. In 1983 during a concert in Paris their older brother Amadou died of a heart attack. A concert was organised in his memory after which the brothers returned to Africa embarking on a major tour of the Ivory Coast, Mali, Gambia and Senegal which bore the fabulous live album PARIS-ZIGUINCHOR which sold more than 200,000 copies. With their younger brother Ousmane replacing Amadou the band went back on the road in France selling out the Espace Balard in front of 20,000 fans and going on to a major tour which attracted over 200,000 spectators. Later in the year they released a new album produced by Bill Laswell entitled NATALlA after which they embarked on a world tour selling out major dates in the U.S.A. and Japan. in 1986 they signed to French independent label TREMA releasing three albums ((Live at the Palais des Congres Sounke” and “Sili Beto“ During this period they continued touring playing all the major festivals in Europe where they broke numerous attendance records and several prestigeous events like the “summit of African head’s of state" and the “humans rights concert for Nelson Mandela” in Paris. in order to capitalise on their extensive overseas the group now back to its original format of Ismaila and Sixu signed their first contract with a major, WEA and in 1996 released MOUSLAI which was recorded in France and England. Their reputation as a live act and representatives of African music had resulted in a meeting of ” brothers» with Carlos Santana with whom they went on to play in Paris and Frejus, so it was natural for them to invite Carlos to guest on this album. Unfortunately contractual commitments made this impossible but they did eventually write together a new song AFRICA BAMBA which four years later was to be recorded for the monumental album SUPERNATURAL which has now sold over 12 million albums world-wide. In February 2000 Carlos invited ismaila and Sixu to play with him at a live concert at France’s radio France inter during which he proposed that they accompany him on his European tour which kicks off in Madrid on May 1 8th. The group’s new album Terra Saabi will be released on Edel to co-incide with this event.