Select the musician whose biography you wish to read:

Jali Sherrifo Konteh - kora
Suntou Kouyate - balafon
Ismaela Suso - djembe

SUNTOU KOUYATE

Here is an article that Vic Smith wrote which appeared in the December 2005 edition of fROOTS magazine :-

If you try to find out anything about the jalis, the great oral historians and musicians of the Manding people of West Africa, you will hear the same small group of family names cropping up over and over again; Suso, Cissiko, Diabate (or Jobarteh according to which European language it is being rendered in), Konte and Kouyate. You will also be told that the Kouyates are the "jali mansa" the kings of the jalis.

Similarly, if you get into conversations with jalis, you will hear the same place names coming up all the time; the places they are from or have been and where their extended families live. These will include the Ziguinchor region in Casamance, Southern Senegal and Tamba Counda in the east of that country, Kankan in Upper Guinea, Bamako, the capital of Mali, Bansang in The Gambia and, probably most prominently, Brikama, down-river in the coastal region.

According to figures issued by The Republic of The Gambia: Central Statistics Department, Brikama has mushroomed at a phenomenal rate. Around 5,000 people lived there in 1963 and now that figure is around 70,000. Certainly the market is a busy, bustling place if you visit it out of the heat of mid-afternoon, but for all that it is still a quiet town. The sound of a van with a tannoy system on top touring around was really quite an exception. The music that was being blasted out from the van was the latest cassette by Foday Musa Suso, local kora hero who now lives and plays in the Chicago area. As always, prices have to be bartered in The Gambia but the sellers seemed to be expecting to get 75 dalasis (less than £1.50). This was way beyond the means of most locals so business was slow.

This cassette, "Timpoli" has Foday's singing and kora playing recorded in a high tech context with lots of electronic sounds in the mix, yet the lyrics are full of his nostalgia for the way of life in Brikama. It also epitomises the dilemma that faces the talented jali. To find an audience and the sort of concert schedule that can provide a decent living, it is necessary to tour very frequently or, even more common, to move to Europe or North America. However, living away from the source of musical and cultural inspiration and being subject to all sorts of Western pressures means that a jali's music will change. Suntou Kouyate is clear in the decision that he has made. He has chosen the purity and poverty involved in remaining at home.

Take a stroll around Brikama with Suntou and this quiet man will point to the various places where jalis lived. "This is the compound of ... Gone to live in Denmark / Holland / Germany / Sweden / Canada etc." To Suntou and to other Brikama jalis, it is a very sad thing to come to a "jali kunda" - a musician's compound - and find no musicians living there. The two most famous jali compounds in this area are still known by the names of two master kora players of the previous generation who lived and taught there. If you go to Alhaji Bai Konte's compound you will still see koras being made and played and, of course, it is still the home of his son, Dembo Konte. About three miles to the west of Brikama is the small village of Kaimbujae and the compound of Alhaji Bai's great friend and fellow master of the kora, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh. You will always get a friendly welcome there from Amadu's widows and daughters, but a recurring sad comment from Brikama jalis is that this compound, once vibrant with music when Amadu, half-brother of Sidike Diabate, Toumani's father, was teaching there, now has no musicians living there.

Two pieces of simple received information about jalis might need some qualifying. One would be that "a jali learns his craft from his father." This is often the case but when you get below the surface, you start to hear lots of tales of jealousy within the male members of the families and anyway with the much shorter life expectancy in West Africa, not all fathers have been around to see their sons reach maturity. Another would be that "a jali is expected to make his own instruments". Also generally true, but a lot of specialisation has been developing between the playing and making.

The current opinion in The Gambia would seem to be that no one can match the skills of Alieu Suso of Bakau when it comes to making koras. His outdoor workshop is a scene of much activity - most of it from Alieu himself rather than his younger helpers. Orders come from all over the world. Once when we were visiting him there, a phone rang. There was much rummaging about to find it amongst piles of skins, calabashes, wooden poles and all the other tools and accoutrements. Eventually, he traced the phone by following the phone line which was stapled to a tree. A short barked conversation was followed by his slamming the phone down. "Sweden." explained Alieu. Some kora players, like Dembo Jobarteh of Serrekunda, would rather teach and play then make and his proudest possession is a fine concert kora made by Alieu Suso.

Suntou decided at an early age that he was going to learn both making and playing the balafon. A Kouyate will justly be proud of his rich heritage. He speaks proudly of the musical skills of his father, Tabading Kouyate and his mother, Jali Fatouma Sikelba, but Suntou decided that his teachers should be his brothers. He first learned to play the balafon from one older brother, He went to live in Dakar for seven years where he was taking balafon lessons, mainly from his brother, Jambo, but also from others. Towards the end of his time there, he was playing successfully in bands in various nightclubs and even considered staying permanently. However, there were frequent messages from his mother that she wanted him to return to Brikama and, anyway, his long-term plan was to learn to make balafons as well and the person he wanted to learn from was another brother, Silumo.

It is difficult to understand the hardships that such a long musical apprenticeship brings. All this knowledge was necessary if he was to follow his profession. I have met young men from jali families, students learning at the same time as Suntou, who have not persevered, partly because of the long period of intense study required to reach an accepted standard both in making and playing. These men are now tailors, drivers and in other professions where not such a long apprenticeship would be required. Nobody was going to pay them to study, nor was there any formalised teaching. Not all jalis were prepared to share their skills. They just hope to spend time with an acknowledged master and learn whilst trying to find some way to eat and keep alive. "Survival is not easy for a learning jali".

When he did start to play professionally at home, he initially avoided playing in the tourist hotels and restaurants, opting rather for the naming ceremonies, funerals, circumcisions, weddings, birthday parties or any celebration where traditionally a jali might be expected to play. A large proportion of the money that he was earning from these various events was going to the brothers who had taught him his trade. This was another time when students started to disappear rather than pay their teachers, but Suntou knew that he had to stick to his brothers if he was to develop the high level of skills that would be expected from a Kouyate. These days, he is still much in demand for local ceremonies but he also plays in hotels though he has no regular gig.

He plays in various duos, mainly with the brilliant young djembe player Ismaela Suso or with his great friend the kora player Jali Sherrifo Konteh. Since his return to The Gambia, he has had many requests to play in bands, but he has tended to be quite choosy about who he plays with and only wanting to play with bands that reflect his love of the pure jali tradition. He has played with the band led by one of The Gambia leading jalimusos, a singer with an outstanding voice and great stage presence, Sambou Suso, as well as with the band led by the kora player Alagi M'bye He also worked with Alagi M'bye at the Maali Music school in Talliding Kunjang near Serrekunda and that was where I first met him in 2000. The school was trying to teach jali musical skills both to local children and students from Scandinavia; the school's sponsors were Swedish. It was not a good time to visit; the imam of the village has been killed in a road accident a few days before. (A multiple accident in which the minibus I had been travelling in narrowly missed.) During the interview I asked Suntou why he no longer worked there and he just smiled broadly knowing that I knew the answer... Let's say that the financial arrangements and payments to staff left something to be desired.

However, this did give him experience of teaching the balafon to Europeans which has become a useful skill. Students came mainly from Scandinavia and this contact remains with a trickle of students who have come direct to him because of recommendations given by those whom he has taught previously. There were two Scandinavian students studying with him as part of their university degree when we were there in February/March of this year.

I found out, not from Suntou, that he had been on Gambian television duetting with Pa Bobo Jobarteh three days before this interview, but this he never mentioned at the time nor in any subsequent conversations. He has no electricity in his compound, but there are many in Brikama that have televisions but he had not bothered to try to see the transmission. Somehow it is not the sort of thing that seems to rank highly in Suntou's scheme of things. Similarly, whilst most jalis seem to have a burning ambition to travel and take their music to the world, Suntou has never expressed such a wish to me. The news that he has just become a father again received during the writing of this article probably makes the chances of such a visit even more remote.

There has always been lots of kora and balafon music during our visits to the compound where Suntou and Sherrifo live, but last year and this they were joined by the compelling but quite gentle singing of Suntou's wife, Makoy Jobarteh. If she were to overcome her shyness, she could become a performer of great talent. She exudes pure joy when she sings. Though Suntou has been heard on Gambian radio and television and on the odd album track, he has never been recorded for his own album, but his great skill both as a soloist and as an accompanist to his wife's singing would certainly merit this.

With each of our annual visits he seems to be busier in making and selling balafons including those for his students, whereas previously even buying the wood and the other materials to make the instruments was beyond his means. He certainly would not have been in a position as he was this year to make us a present of one of his beautiful instruments. Not only is a beautiful artefact, checking it against an electronic tuner confirms what a remarkable ear he has.

His immediate plan is to develop and formalise his teaching and combine that with the making and playing skills of Jali Sherrifo Konteh and Ismaela Suso on kora and djembe to offer packages including accommodation to students and visitors from the West. This is being developed on a website at compoundsounds.com

VIC SMITH

Suntou's French is better than his English, but he chose to be interviewed in Mandinka, so grateful thanks are due to Jali Sherrifo Konteh for acting as translator.