West Africa’s most iconic band, steeped in Afro-Cuban traditions, rightfully take their place in London’s Latin Music Festival. Almost half a century since their formation, Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab has returned with a timeless set of classic, swaying tunes  in the group’s trademark style. Expect some special surprises.

Responsible for some of the world’s most sublime and truly distinctive music, Orchestra Baobab fuse Afro-Cuban rhythm and Portuguese Creole melody with Congolese rumba and high life, which back at their inception in 1970 kick-started a musical renaissance in their native Senegal, turning the capital, Dakar, into one of the world’s most vibrant musical cities. Over the next decade the group dominated the local scene and produced countless hits before disbanding in the mid-80s, but it was their neglected 1982 album, Ken Dou Werente – which included many of their most famous songs, ‘Coumba’, ‘Ledi Njemme Mbodj’ and ‘Utru Horas’ – that became a cult classic, re-released to huge acclaim by World Circuit Records in 1989 under the title Pirate’s Choice.

‘Old-school Africa at its finest.’ The Observer

‘One of the world’s greatest live acts.’ The Guardian

In support is Malphino, a band whose reinterpretations of cumbia rhythms create new and hypnotic tropical concoctions. Based in London, members of the Malphino collective come from Japan, Malaysia, Colombia, France, Philippines and the UK.