Music
Festival au Désert: the Malian music festival in the Sahara that went into exile
The Festival au Désert, launched in Mali in 2001, brought Tuareg, Malian and international musicians to the dunes…
Mali
Arts + Culture
The djembe: how a Mande drum became one of the world’s most popular instruments
The djembe, a goblet-shaped drum from the Mande world of West Africa, is played with bare hands and…
Arts + Culture
The balafon: the West African xylophone and the legendary Sosso Bala
The balafon, a wooden xylophone with gourd resonators, is one of the oldest instruments of the Mande world.…
Arts + Culture
The Timbuktu manuscripts: how librarians smuggled a city’s books away from jihadists
Timbuktu holds hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, some centuries old, on subjects from law and astronomy to medicine.…
Music
Super Rail Band: the Bamako railway hotel band that launched Salif Keita and Mory Kanté
The Rail Band, formed in 1970 at the station hotel in Bamako, mixed Mande griot music with Cuban,…
Music
Boubacar Traoré: the Malian guitarist who disappeared for twenty years and came back
Boubacar Traoré, known as Kar Kar, was a star in Mali in the early 1960s, when his songs…
Arts + Culture
Bogolanfini: the Malian mud cloth painted with fermented earth
Bogolanfini, or mud cloth, is a Malian textile made by the Bamana people. Cotton is dyed with leaves…
Arts + Culture
The jeli: West Africa’s griots and the families that keep history in song
In the Mande world of West Africa, the jeli, or griot, is a hereditary musician, historian and praise…
Music
Ali Farka Touré’s son makes his own name: Vieux Farka Touré
Vieux Farka Touré, born in Niafunké, Mali, in 1981, is the son of the celebrated guitarist Ali Farka…
Music
The ngoni goes electric: Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni ba
Bassekou Kouyate, born in 1966 in Garana near Ségou, Mali, into a griot family, began playing the ngoni…