African music legends and innovators coming to Northern Lights Festival Boreal

NEWS RELEASE
NORTHERN LIGHTS FESTIVAL BOREAL
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SUDBURY - Northern Lights Festival Boréal (NLFB) is a place where sounds, styles, and cultures mix to make a brew of truly unique content. Although NLFB isn’t subscribed to one central theme this year, its lineup explores a vast variety of genres, including music from Africa.

“For the past few years, I have been fascinated with various styles of music from the African continent,” explains the festival's executive/artistic director, Max Merrifield, “I wanted to share that sincere love with the festival audience.”

With that in mind, Northern Lights Festival Boréal 2018 is excited to present Laetitia Zonzambé, an undeniable leader of African Music in Canada. Moving from the Central African Republic to Montreal in 2009, Zonzambé’s music connects traditional accents from the Bantu region of Africa to modern influences of soul, funk, pop and R&B.

Whether she sings in Central African languages, French or English, Zonzambé will take the festival audience on a musical journey of propulsive rhythms, emotional ballads, and transcending melodies. You can see her main stage set Friday evening (July 6, 8:30 p.m.).

Afrikana Soul Sister is expected to be the dance party of the summer with their earth-shaking, electro- afro-house beats. This genre-bending quartet brings together the sharp electronic production of Jean- François Lemieux with undeniable voice of Malian singer Djely Tapa, heiress to a long tradition of music excellence in Mali.

Add some African percussion specialists and the result is an intoxicating Montreal-style dance party, with Authentic African roots. Catch this dance party on July 5, 7:30 p.m. at the main stage and Friday night at the Townehouse Tavern.

Also joining the roster of international talent, Bonsa is bringing his undeniable energy and koanni (a traditional two-string bass guitar) to the main stage, July 7, 8:30 p.m. Hailing from Burkina Faso, Bonsa’s music explores Bissa tradition and numerous contemporary influences. He moved to Montréal in 2016 and, without losing any time, surrounded himself with musicians including Sébastien Pilon and Pavel Maximytchev. In 2017, the Bonsa group won the Syli d’Or for World Music.

Nigerian music veteran and pioneer Orlando Julius will grace the festival Mainstage with his band The Afrosoundz July 5, 8:30 p.m. Over the years, Julius has been praised for his innovative blending of Afrobeat and highlife music with traditional African rhythms and American pop, soul, and R&B. Julius’ 1966 effort, Super Afro Soul, made him a national celebrity in Nigeria and even went so far as to influence the funk movement that swept over the United States in subsequent years.

Northern Lights Festival Boréal is excited to welcome a few other African acts including Juno winner Done Roberts and King Abid.

Northern Lights has a long standing tradition of bringing the world to Sudbury and this year is no exception. “The goal is not to represent the entirety of the continent through music (that would be impossible), but simply to share some of this amazing music that has inspired and excited us,” Max Merrifield comments.

You can see the full line up here

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