Wolo So

Five years in the making, this debut album by the Balimaya Project (balimaya meaning ‘Essence of Kinship’ in the Maninka language) is stunningly potent. It exudes quality from the kora and balafon intro of opening track ‘Balimaya’, as it slams into an ultra-tight jazz arrangement, to the triumphant anthemic coda, which emerges from some fine percussive West African wizardry on the final track ‘Dakan’.

It’s rare for the music of this region to mingle with jazz, but this 16-piece supergroup play a unique and wondrous hybrid of traditional Mande music and contemporary jazz. UK-based composer/arranger and percussionist Yahael Camara Onono has brought together some of the cream of London’s unstoppable new generation of players, including members of KOKOROKO and SEED Ensemble, along with virtuosos like Jali Bakary Konte (kora) and N’famady Kouyaté (balafon) and their often driving, sometimes lyrical music stays passionately close to both traditions.

Whether you’re considering the stratospherically high quality of their music making or how times have changed following the impact of the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, you have to agree with Onono’s comments: “There were times where we spoke on our culture and we felt like we got shut down or we were not taken seriously. Now you have to take it seriously.”