October 26, 2010 • The father of the modern day ngoni has brought the instrument and its history to the forefront of Mali's musical culture. Kouyate has put together his own band of four ngoni ...

Bassekou Kouyaté’s band is Ngoni Ba, which translates roughly as “The Big Ngoni,” a pretty terrific description of what Kouyaté’s selling, if you know what an “ngoni” is.

That existence is inseparable from the instrument he plays, the ngoni. It is as ancient as it looks; four or five strings made of fishing line strung down a fretless piece of walking stick ...

"I made the first one so you could really hear the ngoni. It was not an instrument widely known outside West Africa so I was introducing it to people, and as such Segu Blue was what I would call a ...

Bassekou Kouyate is a musical wizard and one of Africa's most innovative bandleaders. He plays the ngoni, the traditional lute from Mali that dates back hundreds of years and is the musical ...

Any remaining doubts about west African savannah-belt culture as a primary source of blues, country and rock'n'roll styles are blown out of the water by I Speak Fula, the truly awesome second album ...

Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and his band, Ngoni Ba's third album continues the increasingly outward-looking trajectory of its predecessors. The debut, the lovely Segu Blue (Out/Here, 2007), ...