Dindin

From the age of eight, Kimi Djabaté was forced to sing and play balafón at weddings and baptisms in Guinea-Bissau to help feed his family, when all he really wanted was to be playing games with the other children. However, in time he came to appreciate his precocious talent and since moving to Lisbon in 1994 at the age of 19, he's made a series of fine albums – and even sung on Madonna's last release after she made her home in Portugal.

Dindin joyously fuses traditional Mande styles and the gumbé rhythms of Guinea-Bissau with contemporary jazz and rock guitar tropes over which Djabaté sings in a gentle and alluring baritone, reminiscent of another fine Lisbon-based singer from Guinea-Bissau, Manecas Costa. ‘Afonhe’ simmers with an understated funk and ‘Alidonke’, with its striking rock guitar motifs, is a potent slice of desert blues. On the album's lilting title-track with its classic gumbé stylings, Djabaté seems to be referencing his own childhood with a lyric that translates as ‘Don't exploit children, educate them,’ while the acoustic ‘O Manhe’ juxtaposes a deceptively sunny melody with a biting commentary on forced marriage.