East Africa

British/Somali singer, composer, and community worker Aar Maanta was originally scheduled to perform at the 2011 Global Roots Festival, but visa problems prevented him from attending. It gives us great pelasure to be able to present Aar Maanta in this rescheduled concert. His music incorporates elements from pop, rock, hip hop, RnB, house incorporated onto a solid foundation of traditional Somali music.

Ticket options and info

Synopsis
BENDA BILILI! follows an unlikely group of musicians in Kinshasa, capital of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.  The band, Staff Benda Bilili — in English, “look beyond” — is a group of street musicians composed of four paraplegics and three able-bodied men. The core of the group is four singer/guitarists stricken with polio, who use customized tricycles to get around: Ricky, the eldest and a co-founding member of the band; Coco, the band’s composer and co-founding member with Ricky; Junana, the member most disabled by polio, yet the official choreographer; and Coude, a bass player and soprano singer. Joining them is a young and entirely acoustic rhythm section, led by Roger, a teenage prodigy on the satongé, a one-string guitar he designed and built himself out of a tin can.

Debo Band are the new torchbearers of classic Ethiopian dance music, combining traditional East African polyrhythms and pentatonic scales, classic American soul and funk music, and the instrumentation of Eastern European brass bands.

The Cedar is now fully air-conditioned for your year-round comfort!

Ticket options and info

The Cedar and Kilimanjaro Entertainment present Congolese singer Samba Mapangala of Orchestra Virunga. Timeless music which combines rumba and soukous from Congo with earthier Kenyan elements, with exuberant results!

Ticket options and info

• On sale date: noon Fri May 20
• Phone: 612-338-2674 ext 2 ($1 fee per ticket)
• In person: From a Cedar volunteer in the front lobby before and after shows (no fee), Depth of Field (no fee), or Electric Fetus (small fee)
• Online: Ticketweb (fees apply) (click on red Buy Tickets button at top of this page)
• All Cedar shows are all ages.
• Students with ID may gain discounted admission for tickets at the door.

The Cedar is proud to present an evening of Somali vocal music featuring five of the top practitioners from this region. As home to over 30,000 Somali immigrants, the greater Twin Cities is a natural focal point for Somali culture. But to most non-Somalis, the music is largely unknown. The Cedar looks to rectify this by partnering with the locally-based Somali American Artists Association, founded by a singer widely known as "the king of Somali pop," Axmed Cali Cigaal (or the Americanized spelling, Ahmed Ali Igal), for what we hope to be the first of a series of events. On November 21, Mr. Cigaal has assembled a program involving four other top singers living in the area. The S.A.A.A. will be distributing tickets to this event to members of the local Somali community so we expect a full house!

Co-presented by the Somali American Artists Association

Our music makes you dance, it uplifts the soul and it educates you. Coming to see Jabali Afrika, you become part of the act, because we kill that barrier between the audience and the band. (Joseck Asikoye, Jabali Afrika)