Kanéfonyo

Kora player, percussionist, singer, composer, griot and a half-brother of Seckou Keita, Susso has recorded with Norway’s Kristin Asbjornsen Trio, played kora on stage with Youssou N’Dour and collaborated in a plethora of fusion projects. Now resident in the UK, he returned to Gambia, the country of his birth, to record his debut solo album and completed it back in the UK with a supporting cast of musicians drawn from across two continents.

Backed sympathetically by guitar, bass, drums and keys on seven of the dozen tracks, he sings in an appealingly gentle voice but what shines through the textured accompaniment is his kora playing on a set of appealingly melodic Afro-pop songs. For a change of pace, ‘Ekanasong’ and the lullaby-like ‘Rahim’ are gorgeous, gossamer numbers featuring only his kora and solo voice. ‘Rahim’ is dedicated to his infant son and family looms large elsewhere, too – ‘Nkotoké’ (it translates as ‘Big Brother’) is a tribute to Seckou, praising his ‘clean-hearted deeds’ and the album closes with the playful ‘Father and Son’, a lightning-fingered kora duet with his father Mamudou Susso. The musical heritage he passed on to his son is in safe hands, modernised but without losing sight of its time-honoured griot essence.