This is an updated version of a story first published on Dec. 25, 2022. The original video can be viewed here. Tonight we want to introduce you to a musician named Sona Jobarteh, who introduced us ...

He voiced what many of his peers probably felt after watching the extraordinary documentary Ballaké Sissoko, Kora Tales. Sissoko is a jeli (called a griot by outsiders) – a hereditary oral ...

His father, Sidiki Diabaté, was the premier kora player in the years following Mali’s 1960 independence from France, and his mother, Nene Koita, was an accomplished singer. Diabaté ...

When Toumani was born in Bamako in 1965, neither his surname Diabaté or his instrument, the kora, an iconic 21-stringed African harp, were familiar to anyone outside the Mande region. By the time ...

Diabate, who died on Friday at the age of 58, was considered a virtuoso of African stringed instrument the kora – a "king of kora" in Mali and beyond. His countrywoman Oumou Sangare ...