Coordinates: 14°40′01″N 17°23′54″W / 14.66694°N 17.39833°W / 14.66694; -17.39833

Île de Gorée (i.e. "Gorée Island"; (French pronunciation: [ildəɡoʁe]) is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement (i.e. "commune of arrondissement") of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is a 0.182 square kilometres (45 acres) island located 2 kilometres (1.1 nmi; 1.2 mi) at sea from the main harbor of Dakar (14°40′0″N 17°24′0″W / 14.666667°N 17.4°W / 14.666667; -17.4).

Its population as of 31 January 2005 official estimates is 1,056 inhabitants, giving a density of 5,802 inh. per km² (15,028 inh. per sq. mile), which is only half the average density of the city of Dakar. Gorée is both the smallest and the least populated of the 19 communes d'arrondissement of Dakar.

Gorée is famous as a destination for people interested in the Atlantic slave trade but relatively few slaves were processed or transported from there. The more important centres for the slave trade from Senegal were north, at Saint-Louis, Senegal, or to the south in the Gambia, at the mouths of major rivers for trade.

Marcus Miller (born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr., June 14, 1959, Brooklyn, New York) is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career. Miller is classically trained as a clarinetist and also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar.

Miller was born in 1959 and raised in a musical family that includes his father, William Miller (a church organist and choir director) and jazz pianist Wynton Kelly. By 13, Marcus was proficient on clarinet, piano and bass guitar, and already writing songs. Two years later he was working regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith. Miller soon became a first call session musician, gracing well over 500 albums, a short list of which includes Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, Me'shell Ndegé Ocello and Flavio Sala.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

Nuru Kane (born Papa Nouroudine Kane) is a Senegalese singer/songwriter who plays guitar, bass and guimbri, a three-stringed Moroccan bass in the band Bayefall Gnawa.

Nuru's debut CD, Sigil, which was released in the UK on March 14, 2006 and the rest of the world on April 24 by Riverboat Records and World Music Network, included griot, gnawa, and blues influences.

His band, Bayefall Gnawa, played at the 2004 Festival in the Desert in Mali, and at the 2006 Africa Oye as well as at the Festival of World Cultures 2010 in Oslo, Norway.

His single "Goree" appears on the soundtract of the 2011 film "The Mechanic" at the graveyard scene.

Ismaël Lô (also Ismaël Lo) is a Senegalese musician. He was born in Dogondoutchi, Niger on 30 August 1956, to a Senegalese father and a Nigerien mother. Shortly after Lo's birth the family returned to Senegal where they settled in the town of Rufisque, near the capital Dakar. He also plays the guitar and the harmonica.

In the 1970s Lo studied at the School of Art in Dakar. He later joined the popular group Super Diamono, but left in 1984 to start a solo career. Over the next four years Lo recorded five popular solo albums.

In 1990 Lo signed a recording deal with Barclay and recorded in France his sixth solo album, Ismael Lo. Thanks to the success of the single "Tajabone" the album became a hit in the European charts. The album launched Lo’s international career.

Iso was recorded and released in 1994, and also became a success. The album contains soft guitar melodies and traditional Senegalese mbalax. The following year Lo toured in Africa. The compilation album Jammu Africa was released in 1996. The song "Without Blame" is a duet with Marianne Faithfull.