Griot Music

Griot music is the traditional art of the jeli, or griot: the hereditary praise-singers, historians and musicians of the Mandé peoples of West Africa. Performed on the kora harp-lute, the ngoni lute and the balafon, and through elaborate sung poetry, it preserves genealogies, epics and clan histories while praising patrons and mediating social life. Griot families such as the Diabaté, Kouyaté and Sissoko have transmitted the repertoire orally for centuries, and performers including *Toumani Diabaté* and *Djeli Moussa Diawara* have carried the kora tradition to international audiences without abandoning its ceremonial core.