Mandé Sila: A West African Journey

0000: Guitarist Habib Koité leads an acoustic quartet celebrating West African musical cultures at Zurich's Moods jazz club.

Born in 1958 into a Khassonké griot family, the hereditary caste of musicians and oral historians in West Africa, Habib Koité grew up surrounded by a musical heritage that would shape everything he did. He studied at the National Institute of Arts in Bamako, where his talent was such that he was appointed conductor of the school's prestigious band within six months of enrolment. He graduated in 1982, and stayed on to teach guitar for another six years. Since the early 1990s, when his song "Cigarette A Bana" became a hit across West Africa and Radio France Internationale awarded him its Discoveries prize, Koité has built one of the most distinctive careers in world music, a pan-Malian approach, rooted in the griot tradition, that draws on the rhythms and languages of every ethnic group in his country.

Mandé Sila, "the musical path of the Manding empire", is his acoustic quartet project, and one of his most ambitious. Around him, three virtuoso musicians: Aly Keïta, born in Abidjan, a balafon master who has collaborated with Joe Zawinul, Pharoah Sanders and Jan Garbarek; Lamine Cissokho, a kora player from Senegal who comes from a celebrated griot family; and Mama Koné, his long-time percussionist from Mali. Together, they move through original compositions that weave West African rhythms with oriental and jazz influences, music that is both deeply rooted and open to the world.

Genre Live Show (Global Music)
Recording location Moods, Switzerland
Production year 2026
Duration 1h35