What’s up everyone!

At K.S.K. Records, we preparing to release our upcoming album featuring Tiécoro Sissoko of Mali. Stay tuned as our release date is coming up soon!!

Meanwhile, click below to watch a video and get a little taste of the masterful guitar playing and beautiful griot singing that you will hear all around the tracks on this album!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uaiOuxa2Bw&context=C45ea2d1ADvjVQa1PpcFNVvxBvwIAhm3a8_TWMAMWBChcpqsbVDS8=

Peace,

K.S.K. Records

Check out this clip that the K.S.K. crew put together in honor of Lobi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Fuvpf3UeM&context=C37c44e4ADOEgsToPDskLWCFDYofiJ3h8O52Z_JOML

What’s up K.S.K. friends!

We want to share with everybody this promo video that our crew edited for Sibiri’s album “Dambe Foli”.

You can watch it on our youtube page at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3PjwPoEXPQ

Peace,

K.S.K. CREW

What’s up everybody,

Our newest release is now available on our website. The album Wassolou Foli presents Master Sogonikun Djembe Fola Taga Sidibe playing with his friends featuring the angelical voice of ‘Tu’ Sinayogo. We have already received several great reviews including a feature on National Geographic‘s Video Selecter where they choose hot picks of the week . If you would like to check out the review and watch the video to have more of an idea of what the album sounds like log onto: http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/article/content.article/video_selecter_taga_sidibe/en_US

To purchase Wassoulou Foli, log onto our store at: http://www.systemkrush.com/store/new_releases.php

We hope you enjoy this album!

Peace,

K.S.K. Crew

Our crew has been fully immersed in the studio for the last three weeks recording Grammy-Award winning M’bira player Chris Berry for the making of the new album that KSK will be putting out this year. Chris’ incredible electric M’bira sound combined with drummer Abou Diarrasouba (The Wailers, The Mighty Diamonds, etc), percussionist Daniel Moreno (George Benson, Cheick Tidiane Seck, Salif Keita, etc) and Malian Djembe player Moussa Camara set forth this remarkable music project.

What’s up KSK friends?

We want to share with everyone this article about our record label. We were featured in the October issue of Music Initiative Online Magazine. After we started the campaign to our newest release Sibiri Samaké’s Dambe Foli, the crew of the Music Initiative wanted to do a feature on our label and interview the founder Aja Salvatore. You can find his interview on page 52 of the link below.

Make sure to check it out and send us your feedback!!!

http://www.issuu.com/themusicinitiative/docs/international

Thanks to all staff of the Music Initiative. It’s through the support from you and all of our friends that we can keep our label expanding and reaching out to more and more musicians in the world!

PEACE! KSK Crew

Hello to all K.S.K. Friends,

As most of you already know, we just raised $25,667 as finishing funds for the documentary. We’d like to thank everyone that has contributed to the project as well as people who helped promote to others that were interested in donating.
If you haven’t seen our kickstarter page make sure to check it out at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1585738736/music-in-mali-life-is-hard-music-is-good?ref=live

We are really excited to move forward with post-production. We currently have an interpreter that is a native Malian working on getting subtitles for the footage and next we are working on putting together a rough cut of the film.

This past weekend we screened a Sneak Peak at the Nevada City Film Festival. We received great feedback from the audience and could feel everyone’s excitement for the finished release.

We’ll make sure to keep everyone updated on the progress of “Music in Mali: Life is Hard, Music is Good”

Peace,

K.S.K. Crew

Newsflash on The Telegraph: Lobi Traoré: Bwati Kono – In the club, CD review Bwati Kono is probably the best representation of Malian guitarist Lobi Traoré’s style.

Read more by clicking on the link below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/8566297/Lobi-Traore-Bwati-Kono-In-the-club-CD-review.html

Since we got back from Mali we have been rolling with the production of  Life is Hard: Music is Good. We shot phenomenal footage this year and have new artists to be featured in the film including Djeneba Seck, Nabintu Diakate (back vocalist of Oumou Sangare) and Grammy Award winner Toumani Diabate amongst others. Also, we returned to visit and pay respects to the families of Lobi Traore and Zani Diabate who both passed away within this last year.

We are hyped to continue this project and are currently working on getting funds to finish the film. We put a video together with a kickstarter campaign to help us raise these funds. Here is a link to the campaign if you would like to contribute in any way. Every $1 helps: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1585738736/music-in-mali-life-is-hard-music-is-good

Meanwhile, we started a press campaign to promote our latest album Bwati Kono by Lobi Traoré. The campaign has been extremely successful, as we are getting responses from acclaimed critics to online music blogers and newspaper writers. The track “Makono” was selected as Song of the Week on NAT GEO Music online. http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/home/en_US. You can download the track from their website. We will continue to update upcoming reviews and articles, so Stay Tuned!

KSK Records returns to Mali this January to finish shooting interviews and live musical performances for the upcoming feature-length documentary “Music in Mali: Life is Hard, Music is Good”.  KSK’s small crew including the film’s Director Aja Salvatore, Director of Photography David Nicholson, Cameraman/Field Producer Jim Fabio and Cameraman Camen Hodges, will reconnect with field producer Abdoul Doumbia in Mali.  The crew will remain there for two months before heading back to the US to begin post-production on the film in time for the 2012 film festival circuit.