Aado

According to the old Lovin’ Spoonful song, there’s 1,352 guitar pickers in Nashville – a number that is surely dwarfed by a headcount of kora maestros in West Africa. Kadialy Kouyaté is yet another virtuoso to emerge from the West African griot production line.

Now resident in London, but hailing from Casamance in southern Senegal, Kadialy claims a lineage back to Balla Fasséké Kouyaté, griot to the 13th-century emperor Sunjata Keita. Aado is his fourth solo album in five years. Like its predecessors, it’s full of gentle melodies that value simple beauty over flashy bombast. ‘Aado’ refers to a set of moral customs and values and the nine entirely instrumental and unaccompanied tunes here are steeped in Mande cultural tradition. ‘Sora’ is a tribute to the Cissokho griot family and the traditional tune ‘Janjon Ba’ pays homage to the great warrior Fakoli. ‘Thiosano’ is a celebration of shared heritage and ‘Diyanamo’ is a courtly love song. There’s nothing particularly adventurous and no fusing of the ancient art of the kora with contemporary elements – just simple, traditional playing at its most pure and meditative.