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…
Mali
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…
Music
A guitar tuned like an n’goni: Habib Koité and Bamada
Habib Koité, from a lineage of Khassonké griots, developed a guitar style that tunes the instrument to a…
Music
Forced out of the north by a music ban: the story of Songhoy Blues
Songhoy Blues formed in Bamako after its members fled northern Mali, where the jihadist group Ansar Dine banned…
Music
A diplomat’s daughter who made Malian music modern: Rokia Traoré
Rokia Traoré, born in Mali in 1974, travelled widely as the daughter of a diplomat and blended Malian…
Music
Actress, street theatre performer and Grammy nominee: Fatoumata Diawara’s Malian journey
Fatoumata Diawara, born in Côte d'Ivoire in 1982 to Malian parents, began as an actress in films such…
Arts + Culture
Seventy-one generations of griots, one kora: Toumani Diabaté, who died in 2024
Toumani Diabaté, the Malian kora master from a long line of griots, won Grammys with Ali Farka Touré…