Music of the Gambia Music of the Gambia The music of the Gambia is closely linked musically with that of its neighbor, Senegal, which surrounds its inland frontiers completely. Among its prominent musicians is Foday Musa Suso. "Mbalax" is a widely known popular dance music of the Gambia and neighbouring Senegal. It fuses popular Western music and dance, with "sabar", the traditional drumming and dance music of the Wolof and Serer people. "For The Gambia Our Homeland", the national anthem of the Gambia, was composed by Jeremy Frederic Howe, based on the traditional Mandinka song ""Foday Kaba Dumbuya"", with words by Virginia Julia Howe,
History of the Gambia Gambia too. In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States, stopped overnight in Bathurst en route to and from the Casablanca Conference. This marked the first visit to the African continent by a sitting US President. The visit hardened his views against British colonial rule. Appalled, as he was, by the poverty and disease that was present there, he wrote to Churchill describing the territory as a "hell-hole". After the Second World War, the pace of reform increased. The economy of the Gambia, like other African countries at the time, was very heavily orientated towards agriculture. Reliance