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The WAAW™ movement was started in Senegal, West Africa by Thierno Camara, a ronouned Senegalese Bassist/Singer/Sonwriter/Composer who had performed internationally with some of Senegal's most popular artists including Thione Seck, Cheick Lo, Fatou Gowel, Kine Lam, and Moussa NGom, the SeneGambian. By 1998, Thierno had moved to New York and began collaborating with American musicians and other artists from around the world, adding other sounds to his concept. By 1999 this eclectic collective of african and world fusion came to be known as the WAAW Band™, touring the United States and Canada.

Today the original is mostly refered to as WAAW Band™ Evolution because it literally evolved through experimentation from primarily being a Senegalese folk band into its own unique form of Pan-African world fusion and features musicians from around the world. Recently Thierno decided to pay homage to his roots and teamed up with New African Productions to create WAAW Band™ (Mbalax), a new division with different members, which specializes in roots Senegalese music and cultural events, showcasing talent from Senegal, West Africa and mbalax music in particular.

The WAAW Band™ is the first NYC-based group to present authentic and original mbalax music of the Wolof people from Senegal, West Africa! Popularized internationally by the renowned singers Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal, mbalax is a highly danceable music style characterized by complex polyrhythmic percussion and dramatic vocal harmonies sung in Wolof (Senegal's largest language group). WAAW Band's original and fresh approach to mbalax reflects the diverse talents of the group's members, and how they infuse the musical traditions of their homeland with the popular styles they have absorbed as young musicians living in New York City.

Although the Mbalax division of the band has only recently appeared on the New York music scene, the word is out - and so are the dancers! The genre of mbalax became popularized in Senegal in the early 1980s, and came to be defined by Youssou N'Dour and his seminal band, Étoile de Dakar. Adding accents of jazz and Cuban horns (introduced throughout Africa in the 1950s) to traditional Mandinka drums, they transformed rhythmic patterns into innovative instrumental stylings and singing techniques. Prominently featured is the tama (talking drum), which accents the riveting knombalax rhythmic style. The songs can be about topical issues, as well as love, morality and historical tales.