Damon Albarn is amongst the musicians set to join the Africa Express for a series of nationwide shows.

Africa Express began life as a number of one off shows. Acting as a showcase for African music, each performance seemed to encourage all manner of collaboration and cross-fertilisation.

Now the Africa Express is set to be turned into a train-bound tour. Kicking off on September 2nd in London the train will guide a varied cast of musicians to shows up and down the country.

Hitting Middlesbrough, Glasgow, Manchester and Cardiff, the tour finishes at Graniary Square near King's Cross.

Now for that line up... Damon Albarn is a long term advocate of African music, and he will be joined by some special performances. Amadou & Mariam are set to take part, alongside Fatoumata Diawara, Jupiter & Okwess International and more.

The varied line up also includes Charli XCX, Noisettes and Jack Steadman - singer of Bombay Bicycle Club.

Here's a quick introduction to the project.



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Africa Express shows:

September
3 Middlesbrough Town Hall
4 Glasgow The Arches
5 Manchester The Ritz
6 Cardiff Solus
7 Bristol The Big Top (Creative Common)
8 London Graniary Square (King's Cross)

Click here to buy tickets for Africa Express!