Courage

Malian kora (harp-lute) player Mamadou Diabate is still only in his mid-30s but has racked up a stack of excellent studio recordings. In 2009 he added a Grammy award for Best Traditional World Music Album (for his last album, Douga Mansa) to his list of achievements. This latest release is made up of new compositions and they sparkle with innovation and youthful energy, helped along by a band of ngoni, balafon and guitar players.

There are new arrangements of traditional songs about famous figures from the past, such as ‘Macky’, a fluttering tune praising the son of a particularly generous religious leader. Mamadou’s solo tunes are powerful, mixing alluring melody with driving rhythm, like the melancholic ‘Bogna’, or the fabulous, experimental Kora Journey’ which tells the story of his life, from the small town of Kita where he was born, to the US, where he now lives. But the real winners are the compositions with the band. The ngoni (lute) in particular seems to carry its own rhythm and melody through the songs, intertwining with the kora and then breaking free for some solos that don’t steal the show but make it worth listening to again and again. Best of these is ‘Dafina’, a tune inspired by a 1940s love song, which charmingly translates as see you at midnight’, There are a lot of good kora players out there but Mamadou, if he carries on like this, will reach the top in no time.