Documentary style video on traditional Mandinka music and the cultural world of Mandinka traditional oral historian-musicians known as “griots.”  Including: Kora duets, wooden-keyed xylophone and 3-string bass kora, women’s bell, drumming discussion and demonstration, dancing, kora teaching, and traditional story-telling.

Forty-eight years ago, Alhaji Bai Konte brought the music of the kora (Mandinka harp) from Gambia to the U.S. This year, his grandsons (the word is used a little more loosely than usual) Great Gambian Griots, continue to carry on that tradition. Jali Bakary Konteh is an imaginative improviser who can support the tradition or blend traditional and modern instruments. Pa Bobo Jobarteh is a human rights activist whose songs were instrumental in the rarest of events in modern politics: a bloodless, democratic overthrow of a dictator.  Fled for his life, returned a folk hero! africanculturalencounters.com