I’m Wally Badarou, keyboardist, composer, and producer, from Benin, born in Paris in 1955. I made the synthesizer and the recording studio my world, and I created in all musical genres.

I've got involved in the British band Level 42 from the very beginning, and performed on all of their studio albums from the 80s to the early ’90s, co-writing and co-producing some of their key ones, though I never performed live with them .

I've also been a member of the Compass Point All Stars — Chris Blackwell’s house band for Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, recording with Grace Jones (Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Living my life albums), Joe Cocker, Mick Jagger, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Robert Palmer, Gwen Guthrie, Jimmy Cliff, Gregory Isaacs, Toots, Black Uhuru, and many more in Nassau; and with Foreigner, Marianne Faithfull, The Power Station, Miriam Makeba, Alain Chamfort, Manu Dibango, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, etc, abroad.

I was the musical director and co-composer of the Champs-Elysées Jean-Paul Goude parade for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989. During the 90's, I've also produced albums by Fela Kuti, Salif Keita, Carlinhos Brown, Trilok Gurtu.

Besides film scores such as Countryman and Kiss of the Spider Woman, I essentially had two instrumental albums released in the 80s: Echoes ("Hi-Life", "Chief Inspector", with “Mambo” later sampled by Massive Attack) in 1984, and Words of a Mountain ("The Dachstein Angels") in 1989. I am now delivering The Unnamed Trilogy, one piece at a time online, and some extracts from time to time, as CDs or vinyl EPs.

In 2012, I joined the SACEM board in France and, in 2014, founded the African Music Academy, with the help of dozens of African high profile figures. When not in my studio or with my family or friends, I continue to advocate for authors rights around the world.