If an African kora-led album is called Electric Griot Land, it'll be different. For years, this instrument - a 21-string harp-lute with half a calabash covered with cow skin as a resonator - has been ...

Why are there no new musical instruments? It’s as if the electric guitar was the ultimate innovation, the last nail in the coffin of music’s social supremacy. If fresh organic sounds are an endangered ...

This week Rhythm Planet showcases classical African music by kora masters from Senegal, Mali, and Guinea. Many other great kora masters couldn’t be featured today for reasons of time—like Malang ...

Epochal artists provoke only obscurity or silence during their lifetimes. The interpretation of their art and their contribution begins only after they have departed from the scene. This is proving to ...

We're adapting the way the kora and the oud are played...using contemporary choices within traditional forms. Seattle's Kane Mathis is one of the world's leading performers on the kora, the ...

Electric Kora Sounds is the modern music of the young Mandingo people, created by contemporary musicians and made popular by the famous Gambia band called Ifangbondi. Ifangbondi who invented Afro ...

Joel Sebunjo is arguably one of Uganda’s most recognised young folk music artistes. He has, over the years, crossed international borders, sharing and presenting his sounds and performed alongside ...

Derek Gripper was a musician with a problem. He'd been playing classical music since he was 6 years old — violin, then piano and finally guitar. He was poised for an international career as a ...

Covering the upcoming concert by Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal has rekindled my long-time love of the West African kora, the beautiful 21-string harp-lute used by griots, the storytellers who… ...