“I have never stopped reading,” explains France-based Senegalese singer, composer and bass virtuoso Alune Wade of the rich sources and inspirations for his fifth album as leader, Sultan. “And I decided to go on a philosophical mission based on Africa’s untold history: I wanted to recount it in another way, take off layers of revisionism, inch closer to the original sources.”

Since completing his fourth album, African Fast Food (2018), Wade has been delving deep into his ‘private musical laboratory’, seeking a fusion between various passions – jazz, highlife, Afrobeat. Recorded, mixed and perfected between Tunisia, New York and Paris, Sultan documents that experiment and can take its place alongside the best work by many of the artists with whom he has collaborated across the past decades: Joe Zawinul, Marcus Miller, Bobby McFerrin, Youssou N’Dour, Cheick Tidiane Seck and more. Wade’s bass leads a charismatic cast of musical collaborators across the 12 tracks: opening number ‘Saba’s Journey’ is a magical reflection on the legend of the Queen of Saba, not to mention Ethiopian musical influences of the 1960s and 70s; ‘Nasty Sand’ digs a hard, hypnotic groove. It’s an expansive, immersive set.