Sumu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

sumu can refer to

  • sumu, A Malian word meaning a party in the street.
  • Sumu, a world music/ fusion band, based in Cork, Ireland.

Featuring... guitar/vocals - Niwel Tsumbu (DR Congo), guitar - Chris Percival (UK) drums - Feargeal Lee (IRE), bass guitar - Rik Appleby (UK), Ciara O’Driscoll (IRE) and percussion - Christy Collard (IRE). Sumu's music was a fusion of Soukous/Rumba/indiginus trible rhythms from Niwel's Congo homeland, Afro-beat and western music styles funk, jazz, reggae, classical and rock. Rhthmically the band used complex but danceable polyrythms.

Formed in 2003 after Niwel Tsumbu, not long in Ireland as a political asylem seeker, had a chance meeting with Feargeal Lee in the streets of cork. With Niwel's seemingly endless enthusiasm and unlimited capacity for writing and creating complex and exciting polyrythmic music, good things were soon to be cooked up. Three weeks of jamming procceded at the apartment that Feargal and Rik Appleby shared in the city (soon to become sumu HQ) along with Ciara O'Driscol. A first line-up was quickly put together for their first gig, supporting Malian singer Oumou Sangare, which gave the band their name (after reading an interview with Oumou) and a chance to play to Cork City's world music fans. Sumu spent the next two years intensly rehearsing and playing gigs around Ireland, changing personnel several times before settling on the final lineup. Prestigeous concerts at the Cork Jazz Festival and Dun Laoghaire World Music Festival followed.

Their eponymous debut album, self recorded and produced and released on Chris Percival's Offbeat Records label in 2006, showed the many color's, shades and flavours that Sumu had developed over the three years of their short but highly creative time together; heralding a new era of international fusion music in Ireland, particually in and around Cork.