The kora is in the spotlight in the #SessionLive with Sona Jobarteh (GB/Gambia) and Ablaye Cissoko (Senegal).
Kora Virtuoso | singer | Compose | Educator | Activist: this is what is written on the Sona Jobarteh website, and it is the truth.
Sona Jobareth was born in 1983 in London (Great Britain) in a family of griots (by the father). Songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, cello, piano, harpsichord, and kora), Sona Jobarteh is one of the rare women to be a professional kora player born into a family of griots, aka Sona Jobarteh. After discovering music with her older brother, the Anglo-Gambian artist asks her father, Sanjally Jobarteh (first cousin of Toumani Diabaté), to teach him the art of the kora and the secrets of Mandinka music. Which he accepted on the condition that she find her way, to avoid comments such as “She plays the kora well, for a woman…”. Alongside her musical activities, Sona Jobarteh founded a school in Gambia.The Gambia Academyand tell us about his ideas on education in Africa.
She studied at the Royal College of Music in Kensington (cello, piano and harpsichord) then at the Purcell School of Music in Bushey (composition).
She plays in duet with Ballaké Cissoko on the album Djourou see the video.
See his duet with Sidiki his son on CNN.
Sona releases a new album Badinyaa Kumoo. She came to the #SessionLive to perform 2 tracks from the record.
Titles performed at RFI’s Grand studio
– Dunoo Live RFI see RFI video
– Gambia, CD extract Badinyaa Kumoo see the video
– Musolo, CD extract Badinyaa Kumoo
– Kambengwo feat youss Ndour, CD extract Badinyaa Kumoo
– Ballake Live RFI see RFI video.
Line Up: Sona Jobarteh (vocals, kora, guitar) and Eric Appapolay (guitar, vocals).
Sound: Benoît Letirant.
► scrapbook Badinyaa Kumoo (2022).
Sona Jobarteh to read on RFI Music.
Then we receive Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brotto in the #SessionLive for the release of the album Moment.
It was a Cyril who, in 1829, invented the accordion in Vienna, as for the Kora, it is almost synonymous with the name Cissoko. Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brotto, carry with them a long legacy of music history. Somewhere between the harp and the lute, the Kora spreads out in harmonics, while the accordion improvises its choirs, as if to add depth, it plays with silences, solids and voids. Here, we are of course in the Mandingo tradition with the angelic voice of the griot Ablaye Cissoko, “the one who transmits”, but we are also Yann Tiersen, as if “Amélie Poulain” sent us a postcard from Senegal. A waltz between two knowledges, a conversation between two scholarly instruments, this is what this meeting offers us.
Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brottoscrapbook Moment “Encounter”, it is not by chance that this instrumental arises in the middle of the disc, romantic, like a walk in the streets of a stone town, a sweet conversation between friends, projected out of time. Since 2002, Ablaye Cissoko has traveled the world with his kora and Cyrille also likes to transmit his knowledge, explain his music, especially on educational videos on the internet, their dialogue even without words is rich. And this famous meeting? It is done in the living room, at home, at Cyrille’s who organizes a concert by Ablaye in complete privacy at his home, for his wife and his friends. Their complicity is immediate, it is this friendship and this curiosity of the other that we hear in this disc, each one adapts his technique to the codes and the keys of the other. A human adventure that explores the spleen of the uprooted, explains why the world is not turning round, as Ablaye sings with immense emotion, on the title Deme Deme: “The world is changing. The destruction of the economy throws young people into the paths of emigration and yet these young people are the future of the country. It only remains for us to solicit the prayers of our mothers, the nourishing roots of our society in full disintegration. May the Most High come to our aid…” From friendship and encounter, the most beautiful harmonies will always be born.
Titles performed at RFI’s Grand studio
– N’na Live RFI (instrumental)
– SignolaCD extract Moment
– Third Z Live RFI see the video.
Line Up: Ablaye Cissokokora, song, Cyrille Brottoaccordion.
Sound: Fabien Mugneret, Benoît Letirant.
► scrapbook Moment (My Case 2022/Absilone).