A night curated by Chimurenga Renaissance, a musical duo by Tendai “Baba” Maraire (Shabazz Palaces) and lyricist/guitarist Hussein Kalonji. Featuring guest collaborations that honor hip hop roots from the PNW, global music, and its connection to modern revolutionary struggles throughout the world.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
206 Zulu Presents:
Chimurenga Renaissance
Boka Kouyate & The Djeliyah Band
Ibrahim Arsalan
Washington Hall
153 14th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122
8:30pm (Doors 7:30pm) 21+
$15 Adv/$20 DOS
Tickets
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Chimurenga Renaissance
Chimurenga Renaissance is the genre-blurring collaboration between percussionist/MC Tendai Maraire and guitarist/producer Hussein Kalonji, heirs to two of Africa’s most storied musical legacies. Born of Zimbabwean and Congolese parentage, respectively, Maraire and Kalonji fuse hip hop with traditional Shona and soukous influences to create something wholly modern yet rooted in ancestral power. Their long-awaited album Nhaka—which means “legacy” in Shona—is a bold cultural statement that bridges continents, generations, and genres. The sons of musical legends Dumisani Maraire and Raymond Braynck Kalonji, the duo carry forward their fathers’ sonic spirits with innovation and reverence, reshaping African diasporic music through a present-day lens they call Afropresentism. From the battle-rap circles of their youth to collaborations with icons like King Britt, to performances at venues like Carnegie Hall, Chimurenga Renaissance have built a sound that’s as rhythmically fierce as it is philosophically urgent. With Nhaka, they offer not just an album, but a movement—a call to reclaim, reimagine, and reconnect.
Boka Kouyate & The Djeliyah Band
The Djeliyah Band is the newest West African Music & Dance Band that’s located in Seattle, Washington. A harmonic fusion between the traditional Djeli music and the modern Guinea music within West Africa, which provides a highlife sound for your dancing pleasure!
Orchestrated by; multi-talented Djeli, Aboubacar “Boka” Kouyaté of Kankan, Guinea, West Africa. Djeli’s have always been next to the king and honored within the West African region as the Traditional Griot.
The band began February 2015 in Seattle, Washington. Hitting the ground with an exciting bouquet of songs, music and dance that includes an inter-active component for everyone’s enjoyment.
Djeliyah Band members bring the beat of Mother Africa.
Band members:
Aboubacar Kouyaté: Lead Vocals, Djembé Drum Balaphon and, Guitar.
Naby Camara: Balaphone
Leif Totusek: Solo Guitarist
Daniel Miller: Bass Guitar
Paul Huppler: Drum Percussions
Afua Kouyaté: Dancer, Administrator
Nailah Bulley: Doundouns, Dancer
Foluso Mimy: Djembe, Vocals
Ibrahim Arsalan
Ibrahim Arsalan began his artistic career on stage working with such theatrical luminaries as Bob Devon Jones and Mark Medoff. He expanded his repertoire to include dance when he was “pulled” by the master of the academy Capoeira Batuque into his dance company Ballet Folclórico do Brasil for which he danced, drummed and instructed Afro-Brazilian and West African culture and martial arts for 10 years. Arsalan’s Mandingo ancestry would “pull” him once again into another tradition: Jeliya, the art of the Jeli (griot of the Mande). He would spend the next decade of his life learning Kora from his teachers Jeliba Toumani Diabate in Mali and Jeliba Baba in the US and they would push him to begin performing publicly only a few years into his training.
Arsalan has since gained acclaim within traditional circles and beyond for his practice of Jeliya and demonstrating African American culture’s deep roots in this tradition. He’s collaborated with Jerry Bell of the Dazz Band, members of Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Al Jarreau among others; all the while, acting as the official Korafola of the Senegalese Association of Southern California and the Cultural Attaché to the Honorary Consul of Senegal in Los Angeles.
Whenever asked to explain the Jeli he says simply, “I am a bard.”
Part of the Cloudbreak 2025 Music Fest presented by Visit Seattle and King County!
Stay in a participating downtown Seattle hotel and receive your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS to experience select shows for free from November 7-27, 2024.
Just show your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS and your hotel key card to receive this benefit. Space is limited, and shows are first come, first served.
More Info
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