Audiences at The Billiken Club are in for a treat.

Vieux Farka Touré, a singer and guitarist from the West African country of Mali, is coming to The Billiken Club on April 17. His latest album, Fondo, was released last year to great acclaim, and he is scheduled to perform at the opening of the 2010 World Cup alongside the Black Eyed Peas, Carlos Santana, Alicia Keys and Shakira.

Touré’s stop at The Billiken Club is part of his current national tour.

“It’s tough. It’s wearing. It’s stressful. But every night I get to go on stage, and that’s what performers love to do,” he said.

One of his favorite parts of the tour has been the reaction from American audiences.

“I really like American audiences because they seem to like lots of different kinds of music,” he said. “They dance a lot and jump and scream and jump around … I don’t like an audience who just sits there … I want them up and dancing.”

Touré’s music—a unique blend of reggae, rock, blues and African beats—is as hard to describe to the uninitiated as it sounds, and he isn’t interested in coming up with a classification for it.

“Basically, it’s my music,” Touré said. “There isn’t a way I would define it in a particular way … It’s just my music. It is distinct, and it is what it is.”

Touré’s musical inspirations are as diverse and wide-ranging as the music he plays.

[I listen to] just about anything you can name: rock and roll, funk … I love it all,” he said. “I listen to everything people my age listen to, despite my name.”

(‘Vieux’ means ‘old’ in French.)

Son of renowned African musician Ali Farka Touré, he grew up in a musical environment, a factor that Touré says shaped his interests.

“It’s a pretty amazing way to grow up because you hear the music all the time. … There was always music being played in the house and there was always radio. … It really forms you,” he said.

Nevertheless, music wasn’t always a certain part of his future.

“Basically, I’ve always, always, always wanted to be a musician … There were three possibilities. I either wanted to be a musician, in the army – which is what my father wanted- or a truck driver,” he said. “I tried the army for a year. It didn’t work out, which left music and truck driver. Music won.”

Now that he is a working musician, Touré can’t see himself anywhere else.

“I was born in it. I was raised in it. I will probably die in it,” he said.

For more information about Vieux Farka Touré or to hear samples of his music, visit his official website at www.vieuxfarkatoure.com, or his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/vieuxfarkatoure.

The Billiken Club is located on the ground floor of the Busch Student Center in Salsarita’s.

For more information about The Billiken Club’s upcoming schedule of performers, visit thebillikenclub.wordpress.com.