Bassekou Kouyaté’s innovation in expanding the possibilities of what can be done with the ngoni, a form of west African lute, cannot be underestimated. With his group Ngoni Ba he has developed a, ...

Ba Power is an album which again showcases the incredible dexterity of Malian heavyweight Bassekou Kouyaté’s ngoni instrument. Kouyaté affectionately describes playing the banjo-like lute as his ...

There’s something special about the annual summer gathering that is Earagail Arts Festival. It is now in its 37th year, and its deliciously eclectic programme is spread across the county, and features ...

Bassekou Kouyaté and his band Ngoni Ba burst upon the African and world music scene a few years ago, winning top world music awards and winning the hearts and minds of African music fans everywhere.

Growing up in the West African country of Mali, Bassekou Kouyate recalls the tradition of the Ngoni running through the veins of his culture since he was a child. An instrument dating back nearly ...

Bassekou Kouyate knows exactly what his place is in this world, and he knows where he came from and where he wants to go. That existence is inseparable from the instrument he plays, the ngoni. It is ...

When a leading London daily, the Independent, tags Mali’s Bassekou Kouyaté and Ngoni Ba as “the best rock and roll band in the world”, you know there’s something very special about the seven-piece ...

In the dizzying whirl of feathered masks, electric-blue wigs, psychedelic catsuits and accessories of snake-like proportions, it is the man in a crisp white shirt and neatly-pressed chinos to whom ...

"My father was born with this instrument," Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta says. "This is part of our history." Jatta, 55, is from Gambia, a member of the Jola people. He's holding an akonting: a ...

The ngoni isn’t much of an instrument to look at. Four strings, traditionally cut from lengths of fishing line, are pulled across a hollowed-out, canoe-shaped piece of wood with dried animal skin ...