Badinyaa Kumoo

Long respected as the first internationally successful female kora player, it is more than a decade since Sona Jobarteh's last album, when she made a belated solo debut with 2011's Fasiya. Much of her time since has been taken up with founding an academy in Gambia, described in The Guardian as nothing less than ‘the template for a new African education system.’ Her return to recording is hugely welcome, for Badinyaa Kumoo is crammed with fine new compositions on which she sings in Mandinka as Western instrumentation mixes seamlessly with djembé and calabash and her own glorious kora playing.

Recorded at home in Gambia, in hotels and studios in Paris and Dakar and a bedsit in New York, she also plays bass, guitar and cello – yet this isn't a fusion album but rather a record steeped in African tradition subtly augmented by simpatico global elements. Her choice of collaborators is eclectic, too. The Yemeni singer Ravid Kahalani adds his haunting voice to ‘Kafaroo’, the moody sax of Kirk Whalum is heard on ‘Nna Mooya’ and the blues harmonica playing of Jock Webb on ‘Nna Kangwo’, while ‘Kambengwo’ is an mbalax-anthem to African unity with Youssou N’Dour, and Ballaké Sissoko guests on a deathless kora duet titled ‘Ballake’ in his honour.