Backo is a multi-talented musician and a natural mystic, with a deep spiritual sense and a refreshing, no B.S. approach to life. He recently released his third CD, Lode Yeuk , at the Bamboo, with the Toronto incarnation of his band, Kalimba Kalimba.
Music can cure people.
He grew up in an African village surrounded by music, with a mother who always sang and danced, and a grandmother who, to her dying days, played the didjeridoo for the local kids. A world traveller from his teen years on the African continent, Backo spent four years in Amsterdam and nine in Montreal before moving to Toronto last year. Along the way, he studied with many West African masters and played with some of the finest musicians his adopted countries have had to offer. And though the frozen tundra of a Toronto February might accentuate the miles travelled from his African home, the journey for him has always been about the music and community. If I have money, I take a plane and go.