Ballaké Sissoko – At Peace
(No Format – 2012)
Ballaké Sissoko – Tomora
(Label Bleu-2004)
Ballaké Sissoko – Déli
(Label Bleu-2000)
Dakchi – Mars 2024
Daba – 2019
Zarabi – 2015
Soul of Morocco – 2013
Renowned Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko returns to his own musical tradition with
a completely new chamber ensemble.
His new album « Djelimady N°1 » is dedicated to the memory of his father Djelimady
Sissoko (v.1924-1981), a prominent kora player who was originally from Gambia and who
contributed hugely to the popularity of the instrument.
At the instigation of Mali’s first president, Djelimady became a founder member of the
famed Ensemble Instrumental National, a 30-piece orchestra of traditional instruments
from around the country. This is when he acquired the nickname Djelimady no. 1 because
of his leading role in this ensemble.
There are few published recordings of Djelimady no 1, though kora aficionados will know
of him through the pioneering album Cordes Anciennes, recorded in 1970, in which he
features in duet and trio with other kora players. Ballaké was already a virtuoso, though
still very young, when his father passed away in 1981. Having inherited his virtuosity,
ability to adapt to different styles, his melodic lyricism, and his knowledge of the Mande
repertoire, he was invited to take his father’s place in the national ensemble, aged 13,
becoming its youngest member.
With this new album, Ballaké celebrates his father’s rich musical legacy. It is a creative
returning to and recovering of some of the older, now mostly forgotten pieces of the
kora, and its buried ways and sounds of playing, but always reinterpreted through a
contemporary approach.
In homage to his father, Ballaké has created an entirely new and unprecedented six-
piece ensemble. It is, in effect, a small, chamber version of the orchestra in which both
he and his father performed. This new ensemble, which he calls Mande Tabolo (“taking
hold of the Mande heritage”) is led by his own 22-string kora. It includes two more koras
played by Fode Karamba Seydi and Mohamed Saïba Diabate, both young newcomers.
It also features the soku (one-string horsehair fiddle) that is now endangered. Here it is
played by one of the few remaining soku players, Daouda Sissoko.
The ensemble includes the ngoni, the Malian lute, played by renowned musician and
longtime friend Badjé Tounkara, On the album, the stellar musicians will be joined by
gifted vocalist Fatim Kouyaté, and the guest voice of Franco-Italian singer-songwriter
Piers Faccini, with whom Ballaké has worked extensively, in tribute to the late great
Malian singer Kassemady Diabaté.
Recorded in Angoulême, France, the album was produced by producer and musicologist
Lucy Durán who has a long trajectory of producing innovative albums of Mande music
with many awards including three Grammys (New Ancient Strings; Toumani & Sidiki;
Bassekou Kouyaté: I speak fula), alongside multi Grammy-awarded studio engineer Jerry
Boys (Buena Vista Social Club, Ali Farka Touré & Ry Cooder: Talkin’ Timbuktu).
The album Djelimady N°1 celebrates the creative genius of one of the greatest kora
players at the peak of his art.
Words by Lucy Durán
