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The Sounds of Sona Jobarteh

The first woman from a West African griot dynasty to become a professional kora virtuoso. Twenty-one tracks of Sona Jobarteh, who changed what the instrument is allowed to be.

Breaking a seven-hundred-year rule

The kora is a twenty-one-string harp-lute from West Africa, played in the Mande tradition that spans Gambia, Senegal, Mali and Guinea. It belongs to the griot or jali families — hereditary musicians, historians and praise-singers who have carried oral history for centuries. Playing it professionally has been the province of men in those families for around seven hundred years.

Sona Jobarteh is Gambian-British and comes from one of the principal griot families: her grandfather Amadu Bansang Jobarteh was a master player, and her cousin Toumani Diabáté is the most celebrated kora musician alive. She became the first woman from such a family to take up the instrument professionally, and she did so having also trained classically at the Royal College of Music.

She also founded The Gambia Academy, a school teaching an African-centred curriculum alongside music.

What to listen for

"Gambia" and "Fasiya" are the entry points — the latter means "heritage," and it is the title track of the album that introduced her internationally.

"Musow" means "women" in Bambara, and "Musolou" works the same theme. Given what she had to do to hold the instrument at all, these are not abstract subjects.

"Jarabi" is one of the great standards of the Mande repertoire, played by every kora musician, and hearing her version is the fastest way to place her within the tradition rather than outside it.

"Kambengwo" features Youssou N'Dour, Senegal's most celebrated musician, and "Balláké Sissoko" pairs her with the Malian kora master of that name — two of the most significant endorsements available.

"Saya" appears twice, including a version from the score of Motherland, and "Nna Mooya" with saxophonist Kirk Whalum is the American crossover.

"Kemet" and "Battle Of Qadesh" reach toward ancient Egypt — a deliberate claim about African historical continuity.

Go deeper

Fasiya (2011) and Badinyaa Kumoo (2022) are the albums.

For the wider kora tradition: Toumani Diabaté's Kaira and his duet album with Ali Farka Touré, In the Heart of the Moon, are essential. Balláké Sissoko's Chamber Music with cellist Vincent Segal is one of the loveliest records anywhere.

And for Mande music generally, Salif Keita, Oumou Sangaré and Ali Farka Touré are the doorways into one of the world's richest musical traditions.

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