Grammy Award winning Senegalese singer Baaba Maal has today been appointed by the United Nations as a Goodwill Ambassador, an honorary spokesperson representing the UN’s interests, raising awareness and mobilising support.
Seeing no difference between reaching people as a musician and as a humanitarian, between being the Voice of Wakanda in Marvel’s Black Panther films and energetically advocating urgent and constructive environmental action, his new role will expand on work he has been doing as a Land Ambassador with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Also named today with Baaba Maal is fellow Land Ambassador, the Malian singer, actress and environmental activist Inna Modja, committed to reversing the human influenced process of desertification, one of the world’s major environmental problems, and focussing on the sustainable management of natural resources.
Maal’s inspired and innovative Afro-modernist rebel songs have always purposefully and poetically campaigned on behalf of the underprivileged, deprived, environmentally threatened and culturally neglected. His widely acclaimed new album ‘Being’ dramatically demonstrates how through music Maal evocatively dramatises themes, issues and problems that consistently engage him, including migration, egalitarianism, technology, climate change, drought, generational conflict, natural wonders, community spirit, women’s rights and the collaborative benefits and disruptive dangers of social media.
Maal’s singing voice is one of the most distinctive and admired in the world, but as important to him is his voice as an influential, activist force, and as President of the Naan-K Trust developing solar irrigation projects in his hometown of Podor. His work as a songwriter feeds into his thinking as a principled social reformer and in turn his work as a crusading community leader feeds into his songs. Being a performer and being a UN Goodwill Ambassador, writing a great uplifting new melody and promoting climate change education, are all part of his drive to help make Senegal, Africa and the world a better, fairer, more connected and collaborative place.
