Pa Omar Jack

Pa Omar Jack

Musicians Music

Biography:
Pa Omar Jack is a 28 year old Ndaga sensation who appears to counter the current notion that ‘mbalax stars from Gambia' cannot give a good performance. Adjust your radio's dial and wait for the mbalax play section and you will almost certainly hear "Fish n Chips" on any disk jockey's hot list of tracks. It is uncommon for local mbalax artists to gain fame and get a good amount of airplay next to their Senegalese opposites.

His first promotional single was dedicated to the women - "Jigueni Gambia" in 2005. As is common among up-and-coming artists he struggled as a youth just to get a demo tape produced for him. He soon came to the attention of Kebba Taylor, Hakeem of Sunland Studios, and Elie Nachif of Yellowgate Studios where he produced hits such as "fandeh" and "guestu len". After a period of study and sampling, Pa Omar kept up the impetus eager to achieve his ambitions and partnered Leon Prom on his performances. That gave him much needed exposure to Gambian audiences. TV entertainment producer Lamin Manga presented him on his premier television appearance having much faith in him. The combination sparked off his career and he went back to the studio, recording soundtracks for various local commercials. From this point, Pa and his producer took the next obvious step to produce his debut album.

The album entitled ‘niniyo' a Mandingo highlights the social stigmatism that faces people who live with HIV. It also features the hit single 'Fish n Chips', 'Aduna', 'Leumbal Saye', 'Nice to be Nice', 'Nuyoo' and 'Moi Me'. The album is a mixture of mainstream Dakar mbalax and acoustic, which features the creative fingers of ace Producer Papis Konateh, Wole Rendal, Kebba Taylor, and other musicians. Niniyo was released in July 2007.

Pa's group is called Jeff Jell and he is related to Mass Lowe.