Mamadou Diabate
Photograph by Angel Romero

Descended from a long line of jeli—the musician/storytellers also known as griots—Malian musician Mamadou Diabate is a master of the kora, a 21-stringed instrument with a resonant, harp-like sound. As a jeli, Diabate is heir to a practice of using music and oratory to sustain the Manding people’s consciousness of a past that stretches back to the 13th–century king Sunjata Keita. While continuing the jeli tradition, Diabate and the Mamadou Diabate Ensemble—Balla Kouyate, balafon; Noah Jarrett, acoustic bass; Djkorya Kante, guitar and percussion—also strive to create a bridge between Africa’s traditional past and cosmopolitan future in collaborations with artists as diverse as blues legend Taj Mahal, Irish singer Susan McKeown, and jazz pianist Randy Weston.

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