(ndagga, dakar / kaolack / berlin)

JERI-JERI is the stunning, spectacular collaboration between the renowned BERLIN-based producer MARK ERNESTUS and a griot clan of SABAR drummers from KAOLACK / SENEGAL, led by BAKANE SECK, along with guest MBALAX musicians and vocalists — including many mainstays of the bands of BAABA MAAL, YOUSSOU N'DOUR and more of the country's leading musicians.

world music aficionados will have noted ERNESTUS' remixes of afrobeat architect TONY ALLEN and KINSHASA rockers KONONO NO. 1, as well as his critically acclaimed SHANGAAN ELECTRO compilation. on the quiet, though, he has become increasingly hooked on MBALAX, with its hyper-vivid SABAR and talking-drum work-outs, and sick, sequencer-like marimba synths. in early 2011 he travelled to SENEGAL and THE GAMBIA, in search of original recordings. through an unlikely set of coincidences, he ended up working in the legendary DAKAR studio formerly known as XIPPI, with more than twenty of the finest musicians in the country. the results will be released in 2012... and proliferate in a series of unmissable live performances throughout europe.

JERI-JERI's MBALAX style is swingeingly masterful - heady and hard-grooving, with highly complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms - an ancient and futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super-charged with drama. SABAR traditions are fused with furious AFRO-CUBANISMO, hard funk-rock, and shards of high-life. 

check the video clip to JERI-JERI's inaugural release, MBEUGUEL DAFA NEKH, featuring the lovelorn vocals of guest MBENE DIATTA SECK - out now on the ERNESTUS' new NDAGGA label. and download a short, rough MBALAX promo mix, with songs from senegalese cassettes by the JERI-JERI artists.