The African Soul Rebels tour 2010 features musicians who have used their roots to ignite discussions on the nature of the societies that nurtured them. Oumou Sangaré is one of the biggest stars in Mali, a towering, regal diva whose uncompromising lyrics in praise of women have made her the funkiest feminist icon on the planet. On their first tour of Britain (after 45 years together), Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou are the undisputed heavyweights of voodoo rock. Completing the line-up with a dystopian urban groove are South Africa’s Kalahari Surfers and their special guest, the dub poet, Lesego Rampolokeng. …/

Oumou Sangaré is the queen of Wassoulou music, named after the fertile southern region of Mali, her homeland and a melting point for musical styles and cultures. Having built a reputation as an in-demand wedding singer, she was spotted while still a teenager by Miriam Makeba, who encouraged her to take control of her own career. Her debut album, Moussoulou, proved a pioneering rallying cry for West Africa’s women in 1989, becoming one of the most controversial and praised recordings in Malian history. Since then her stock has only risen and, in addition to three more acclaimed albums (the most recent, Seya, came out last year), she has proved a consummate entrepreneur, whether running a hotel, importing cars or setting up orphanages.

Though they spent almost four decades unknown beyond the boundaries of Benin, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou are making up for lost time. First heard in the bars of the country’s biggest port, where transatlantic sailors demanded the latest sounds, be they rock or soul, funk, Afrobeat or rumba, Melome Clement’s mighty band quickly learnt to play to order. Yet their prime inspiration was not pop but voodoo, the ancient, multilayered religion that grew up in Benin, providing the rhythms and chants to which the orchestra added the horns and guitars that make their recordings so sought after by vinyl hunters. The next big thing in world music? It looks a shoo-in.

Influenced by Krautrock, punk and the English avant garde that shaped the counterculture in the early 1970s, Warrick Sony’s Kalahari Surfers have been an unbowed force for change for almost three decades. Sony, a white South African, and one of the country’s foremost musicians, has become known for his electronic mix of dub rhythm, punk aesthetic and social comment on life both under apartheid and in its wake and has ensured that the Kalahari Surfers’ relevance has grown over time. The quarter century since their debut album has seen them banned, censored and persecuted at home, yet build a following in Leningrad, East Berlin and western Europe. Renewing an alliance that began with the album End Beginnings in 1989, this tour sees them collaborate with Lesego Rampolokeng, a Soweto dub poet inspired by Keats, Gil Scott-Heron and the street poets he heard as a young man.

• Thursday 18th February: Poole Lighthouse (0844 406 8666)
• Friday 19th February: Brighton Dome Concert Hall (01273 709709)
• Saturday 20th February: London Barbican (020 7638 8891)
• Sunday 21st February: Northampton Royal & Derngate (01604 624811)
• Monday 22nd February: Bristol Colston Hall (0117 922 3686)
• Wednesday 24th February: Basingstoke The Anvil (01256 844244)
• Thursday 25th February: Warwick Arts Centre (024 7652 4524)
• Friday 26th February: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (0151 709 3789)
• Saturday 27 February: Edinburgh Usher Hall (0131 228 1155)
• Sunday 28th February: Manchester Bridgewater Hall (0161 907 9000)
• Tuesday 2nd March: Leicester De Montfort Hall (0116 233 3111)
• Wednesday 3rd March: The Sage Gateshead (0191 443 4661)