Ladji Camara was born in 1923 in Norasuba, Guinee. He is of the Malinke Tribe and speaks the Malinke Language. Ladji began traveling in 1946 when he went to live in the Republique du Mali where he pursued both farming and drumming. In 1953 he had the opportunity to join the 1st Les Ballets Africans de Gunee and he travelled all over the world with them for ten years. For one year, in 1962, he came to California expressly to work with Katherine Dunham, an early modern choroegrapher who did research in the West Indies and South America on African cults.