Yé ké yé ké

Mory Kanté (born March 29, 1950 in Kissidougou, Guinea) is an acclaimed vocalist and player of the kora harp. He was born into one of Guinea's best known families of griot (hereditary) musicians. After being brought up in the Mandinka griot tradition in Guinea, he was sent to Mali at the age of seven years – where he learned to play the kora, as well as important voice traditions, some of which are necessary to become a griot.

Kanté is best known internationally for his 1987 hit song "Yé ké yé ké", which was one of Africa's best-ever selling hits as well as being a European Number One in 1988 making it the first ever African single to sell over one million copies. Kanté received unexpected fame again in 1994 when the German techno duo Hardfloor created a dance remix of "Yéké Yéké." He also appeared in 2006 as vocalist on British DJ Darren Tate's release, "Narama". More at Wiki.

Official Website.

Merci, H.

ECOWAS

This acronym puzzled me for months (Echoas, Echoise, Eckowass, I tried them all). Today's a day to say "Aha!". From Wikipedia:

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional group of fifteen West African countries, founded on May 28, 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos. Its mission is to promote economic integration. In 1976 Cape Verde joined ECOWAS, and in December 2000 Mauritania withdrew, having announced its intention to do so in December 1999.

It was founded to achieve "collective self-sufficiency" for the member states by means of economic and monetary union creating a single large trading bloc. The very slow progress towards this aim meant that the treaty was revised in Cotonou on July 24, 1993, towards a looser collaboration. The ECOWAS Secretariat and the Fund for Cooperation, Compensation and Development are its two main institutions to implement policies. The ECOWAS Fund was transformed into the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development in 2001. ECOWAS is one of the pillars of the African Economic Community (AEC).
The current President of the Commission is James Victor Gbeho. The current chairman is acting President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria.
It operates officially in three coequal languages (English, French, and Portuguese).

Official Website.