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The kora (Manding languages: ߞߐߙߊ kɔra [1]) is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. [2] A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It combines features of the lute and harp .
Afrobeat is a music genre with major popularity throughout West Africa. Originating in Nigeria in the early 20th century [9][10][11], [12] Afrobeat grew in popularity in the 1960s. This growth was mainly due to the considerable fame of Fela Kuti, the ‘Father of Afrobeat’, [13] and other pivotal artists such as Tony Allen and Ebo Taylor.
The balafon, kora (lute-harp), and the ngoni (the ancestor of the banjo) are the three instruments most associated with griot bardic traditions of West Africa. Each is more closely associated with specific areas, communities, and traditions, though all are played together in ensembles throughout the region.
The Malian kora harp-lute is perhaps the most sophisticated of Africa's stringed instruments. Complex societies existed in the region from about 1500 BCE. The Ghana Empire [19] existed from before c. 830 until c. 1235 in what is now south-east Mauritania and western Mali.
The instrument is an important element of the Mandingo peoples in West Africa and their playing is reserved only to certain families called griot. [5] She is the granddaughter of the griot of her line, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, whose father migrated from Mali to Gambia. Her cousin is the well-known, celebrated kora player Toumani Diabaté.
Mande percussion instruments include the tama, djembe and dunun drums. Jeli Lamine Soumano states: "If you want to learn the bala go to Guinea or Mali. If you want to learn the kora go to Gambia or Mali. If you want to learn the n'goni you have only to go to Mali."
A griot (/ ˈɡriːoʊ /; French: [ɡʁi.o]; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: ߖߋ߬ߟߌ, [1] djeli or djéli in French spelling); also spelt Djali; Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Instead of writing history books, oral historians tell stories of the ...
The kora, the stringed instrument of the djeli, has been popular throughout much of West Africa since the Malian empire of the 1240s. The instrument traditionally featured seven strings until the Gambian griot Madi Woulendi increased that number to twenty-one.
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