Connector of the Day: Manu Chao

Manu Chao, born in Paris in 1961 into a Galician family that had fled Spain's fascist regime, has long enjoyed a cult following in Britain. His new album is called "Baioarena" and is out now.

Chao won over many new fans when he road-tested his new material in America this summer.

Chao came to prominence with Mano Negra. After several acclaimed albums the band split following a tour of war-torn Colombia in 1993. After buying an old train, Chao and his colleagues spent six weeks traveling via a disused rail track, stopping at villages to play concerts for audiences of peasants, guerrillas and drug traffickers.
Chao later worked with former Clash singer Joe Strummer, with whom he formed a strong bond. "He's the only hero I ever met who wasn't a disappointment," Chao says. "He was a great teacher for me - like an uncle."
Manu Chao sings in many languages - French, Spanish, Portuguese, English and Arabic, often mixing several languages in the same song. His music has as many influences as he does languages - blending punk, rock, latin, ska, salsa - giving his songs the taste of the truly global.
Many of Chao's lyrics talk about immigration, love, living in ghettos and drugs - and often carry a left-wing message.
One of his latest projects has been to perform and record in a mental health hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The resulting album, "Colifita" - slang for "lunatic" - is a collaboration with psychiatric patients who run an Argentinian radio station called Radio Loony. Featuring 20 songs about life, love, loneliness, death, sunshine, mothers and the end of the world, it mixes some old Chao tunes with mostly new material from the singer and patients, including poetry and improvizations. The idea, according to the publicity blurb, is to "laugh, cry and meditate about life."