Ibaaku

Stephen Ibaaku Bassene was born in Dakar, where he grew up listening to the great jazz records and African music played by his family. After discovering the hip-hop scene under the pseudonym Staz, he moved to Bamako in 2000, where he sought to establish himself on a more permanent basis. Back in Dakar, he founded Lyrikal Zone 3, a collective of fifteen artists centered around rap. It was his acquaintances in the artistic world that influenced his career path: with the group I-Science, the collective Les Petites Pierres and the stylist Selly Raby Kane, for whom he produced a soundtrack for the Dak'art biennial in 2014. Bassene then opted for a name change, from Staz to Ibaaku, and turned to electronic music. Accompanied by the Akwaaba label, Ibaaku presented a debut album in 2016 entitled Alien Cartoon. His signature style can be heard right from the start of the tracks, which oscillate between samples, synthesizers and eclectic rhythms. The musician was spotted, notably in France, where he performed at the Transmusicales de Rennes in 2016, and gradually established a new emerging scene of Senegalese artists. Following in the footsteps of Afro-futurism and contemporary writers such as Felwine Sarr, in 2021 Ibaaku presented Neo Dakar Vol. 1, which saw him draw on Senegal's rich musical heritage (Youssou N'dour, Samba Diabare, Coumba Gawlo Seck) as the basis for his new tracks. Continuing his desire to imagine the future of Senegalese music, the following year Ibaaku unveiled Neo Dakar Vol. 2 (2022), which established him internationally as one of the leading figures in electronic music.