folk holidays

A SINGING KORA PLAYER CHALLENGING THE PERCEPTION OF ANCIENT TRADITIONS WITH AN EXCELLENT BAND

A STAR OF WEST AFRICAN MUSIC WHO IS NO STRANGER TO THE BLUES

She is a fascinating amphibian: she comes from a caste of respected Gambian griots, she is a master of the kora, she is the granddaughter of the legendary player Amadu Bansang Jobarteh and therefore has the griot repertoire as well as European baroque music in her fingers, and it is no problem for her to replace the symphony orchestra with her own band. "My music is not a premeditated blend of genres, but rather a coherent sound, expressing my identity in its purest form," says the Royal Academy of Music, London, graduate and classically trained cellist, which is important to understand her desire to challenge perceptions of tradition without ever leaving them at the mercy of the mainstream by modernizing them too much.

She mostly writes her own music, blending the griot tradition with Western influences and acoustic instruments with electric ones. She enjoys stylistic freedom, but still stays on the ground of West African music. But when she picks up the guitar, she likes to probe the terrain of blues-rock songwriting, which is why she recently embarked on an American tour with legendary bluesman Taj Mahal.

She is forty-one years old and not everything she has faced so far has gone according to plan, but, and this is where her uniqueness lies, she has been able to cope with even the biggest challenges.Aside from having an English mother and being born in London, playing the kora, an instrument considered purely masculine among the griots, was perhaps essential, and while the ancient harp was picked up by a woman, something the rules of the caste never ruled out, society considered it a private pastime on her part, and something like a female kora school was never envisaged by griot history. "I don't try to convince people that I am a woman playing the kora, and I have never aspired to become famous in that respect.From the beginning, I just wanted to be a good kora player and be confident in what I was doing," Sona Jobarteh, whose father Sanjalla Jobarteh only started teaching her kora at the age of 17, when she had classical, reggae and performance experience with her cousin Toumani Diabate behind her, stressed at the meeting, saying right from the start:"I will teach you as my child, not as my daughter, wife or even man. Make sure you don't intend to be a female kora player, you can't do that, so I want you to be a musician where no one will be forced to think about whether they are listening to a man or a woman, just a good player."

Sona never intended to change the traditions and submitted to their rules, but she infused the griot epics with feminine energy, musical insight and spirit. In concert, surrounded by an excellent band, she performs a variety of positions on the kora, from afro-funk stacca

Photos by Rob O´Connor, Dan Pier