Saadou Bori, Popular Hausa Musician, Dies In Accident

Popular Hausa musician Saadou Bori is dead. He died in a tragic road accident on Thursday on his way from Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, sources told me.

He was said to be about 50 years of age.

Bori, who hailed from Niger Republic, was a practitioner of Dango (Hausa spirit music) and trance-dancing. His best known songs, recorded together with another notable Nigerien artiste, Moussa Poussy, include "Toro," "Nabo Nabo", "Weino," "Gossi," "Gaweizo," "Gazera," "Dango," "Yallerou," "Bori," "Boudje," "Hadiza," and "Soyeya."

Many of these songs are played on radio stations in all Hausa-speaking areas in Nigeria.

Saadou Bori and Moussa Poussy are two singer-songwriters who worked together in Niger's national music school's house band, Takeda, and went on to bigger things in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Both have spiritual backgrounds, Djerma performer Poussy as the grandson of a traditional healer and Hausa-speaker Bori as a performer of Dango.

Their album, "Niamey Twice," is an international sensation. It combines the talents of the two popular musicians, both renowned performers of trance music and dance. With no domestic music industry to turn to, they joined forces and with a backing band featuring members of Saadou's band, Carnaval, travelled to Abidjan to record Niger's first international album.

In recent years, the late Saadou Bori had made Nigeria virtually his second home, performing at weddings and other engagements.

Information on his death is scanty, but a well-known Hausa movie singer, Mudassiru Kasim, who was Bori's associate, confirmed to me that Bori died on the road to Maiduguri, adding that he was buried in his home town of Maradi, Niger Republic, on Friday.

Kasim said he and some of his friends would travel to Niger yesterday in order to condole the family of the late musician.

(The above photograph shows Bori on the right, together with his boon-companion Moussa Poussy)