Coco Mbassi

She played Live 8 at the Eden Project; she cites Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley and Handel?s Messiah as inspiration; she?s done backing vocals for numerous artists including Salif Keita and Manu Dibango; and her first solo album got her nominated for the BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards in 2002.

Coco Mbassi grew up in Cameroon surrounded by music from around the world and could allegedly sing before she could speak. After finishing her education in Paris she worked initially as a backing vocalist. Stepping into the limelight she won the Radio France Internationale Découvertes Prize in 2001 with the song Muenge Mwa Ndolo. Since then she?s appeared on stages across the world.

She describes her music as ?a tree with deep African roots and branches that extend some towards classical music, some towards soul, gospel and jazz, and others towards Latin music and even pop music?.