Sally Nyolo

Sally Nyolo has an African-European background, she is born in Southern Cameroon, but has lived in Paris since she was thirteen. She started her career as a backing singer for other artists, among them Touré Kunda. In 1993 she started her own group and performed in Paris. In that same year, she sang at the WOMAD Festival in England and her performance won her a place on a compilation released by Peter Gabriel's Real World label. She then became a member of a female vocal group Zap Mama. She is singing on their first two disks. She was the first of the Zap Mama girls to go solo. From Paris she built up her own career and has now released four albums under her own name. Sally Nyolo has taken the a capella based song style of Zap Mama in another direction.

Where Zap Mama eventually went down the more rock influenced road, Sally has returned to her roots and adopted the old rhythms of her homeland of Cameroon.