Baaba Maal performed at Festival Sundiata at the Seattle Center Flag Pavilion in February, 1997. This article previewed that performance.

One of Africa’s finest contemporary musical artists, Senegal’s Baaba Maal, returns to Seattle for a Valentine’s Day performance at the Seattle Center the evening of Friday, February 14. The concert/dance is a "pre-Festival" event sponsored by Festival Sundiata, the Pacific Northwest’s finest African and African American cultural festival which takes place, February 15, 16, and 17 at the Seattle Center.
   African music lovers fondly remember Maal’s shows of years past at The Backstage and as a part of the stunning Africa Fête tour. His music combines the timeless Fulani musical traditions of the tiny northern Senegalese villages in which he grew up with the musical cutting edge of contemporary Western music. Maal’s melding of guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums with the 21-string kora, sabar drum, and other traditional instruments of Africa produces Senegalese rhythms that quickly arouse one’s urges to dance. Fortunately, the Flag Pavilion will be configured with a large dance floor to accommodate just such needs in addition to abundant concert seating.
   In explaining his music, Baaba Maal emphasizes that, "The base of all music in Senegal is traditional. Music has a role and importance in society and life. If I do a record, I don’t calculate whether it’s going to sell; it’s simply a natural part of me, an extension of myself, because music is something I do all the time."
   The most prominent of the ancient rhythms adopted by Baaba Maal is the Yela. "The Yela is a very old kind of music, " says Maal, "but I have modernized it using western instruments while maintaining the melodies of traditional songs. Yela comes from the old empire, before colonization, before even the Muslims came to Africa from the Middle East. When something happened in the empire, they used to play it to call people to listen. If the king wanted to tell his people something important, they would play Yela to bring people to listen."