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Kasse Mady Diabate, a key figure in Malian music, left his mark on history with his gentle yet powerful voice, earning him the nickname "the golden voice of Mali". A respected Mandingo artist, he was known for his ability to touch souls with melodies and texts steeped in depth and tradition. As a griot, he carried the musical heritage of his people with dignity and talent. The album title song, Toumaro (A bientôt), written by his daughter Hawa Kasse Mady Diabate, is part of this heritage, celebrating love and gratitude. After Kasse Mady"s sudden death in 2018, Hawa continued the album her father had started, offering a poignant tribute to his legacy and a beautiful way to connect with him spiritually through music. Hawa herself is an iconic figure on the Malian music scene, particularly as a member of Trio Da Kali, the griot "super-group" whose album Ladilikan with the Kronos Quartet was a true masterpiece. Toumaro is a testament to the richness of the griot tradition, carried on by artists such as Hawa as well as Lassana Diabate and Madou Kouyate. Their collaboration on Toumaro with renowned musicians underlines the importance of passing on cultural and musical values, while renewing the genre through contemporary arrangements.

The Malian virtuoso, indisputably one of the most creative talents of his country, deserved his solo career decades ago. In May 2026, we released his debut solo album SOBRA DANCE featuring his wife Mariam Kouyate on vocals. The groovy and variated electric album, went straight to the top lists of World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart as well as selected for TOP OF THE WORLD by SONGLINES. Gaoussou's solo debut got several 5 star reviews.DJANGO BLUES is a tribute to Gaoussou's father and childhood teacher, who's nickname is Django. On this album the talented guitarist and composer goes deeper into the roots of Malian Dessert Blues, with the variations from the Arabic soundscapes from the north.In Senegal, Gaoussou is nick named "The new Ali Farka Toure". But even though Ali Farka was one of Gaoussou's greatest inspirations, Gaoussou has developed an unmistakable style of his own. He breathes music and goes to his studio every day to work. He uses his composing to reflect, and as a ventilator when things are hard -they often are in his country of contrasts- and as a love declaration to life itself. He is a true Mandingue, a Griot, peaceful and kind, as the philosophy preaches.Accompanying such legends like Toumani Diabate and Kasse Mady Diabate, Gaoussou Kouyate, with his beloved village 'Sobra' as his middle name, has long proven his level. Yet his name has been relatively undiscovered. The trio performed a memorable concert at Dakar Music Expo, led by their producers, Dudu Saar and Lucy Duran. What started being noticed internationally through this exceptional trio was Gaoussou's composing skills.The electric SOBRA DANCE album was released first, to contrast and give space to the acoustic GUITARI BARO album. Now comes the time for DJANGO BLUES. This great album features Gaoussou's band as well as an exceptional Moroccan Ribab- Amazigh violin master and singer, Aziz Ozouss.

In their new album Bagola, Trio Da Kali present newly composed songs accompanied on balafon and ngoniba, that provide a rich accompaniment to the spectacular voice of Hawa Kasse Mady Diabaté. She inherits her singing style from her father, the late Kasse Mady Diabaté, who was widely recognized as one of Africa"s all-time greatest singers and won a Grammy nomination in 2004. Hawa"s voice has an exquisite purity and expressiveness, with a wide emotional range. She is equally at home in the lively, 9/8 rhythms of the title track Bagola, a light-hearted critique of men in Malian society, to the soulful Orpaillage, a song that laments the destruction of land from gold-panning. Orpaillage was in fact composed on the spot in the studio, reflecting the creative chemistry between these three musicians. The musical director of the trio is balafon (xylophone) player Lassana Diabaté, born in Guinea into a well-known family of balafon musicians. His remarkable dexterity on the balafon earned him a place in Toumani Diabaté"s Symmetric Orchestra, and later on in the group Afrocubism (featuring Eliades Ochoa). He has collaborated with many musicians, including bluesman Taj Mahal on the album Kulanjan. With two balafons of 22 rosewood keys each, tuned to play chromatic scales, Lassana Diabaté achieves a perfect balance of rhythm, melody, harmony and virtuosic embellishment. David Harrington, leader of Kronos Quartet, compares him to none other than JS Bach. Underpinning the balafon with compulsive groove, is the large ngoniba, played with brilliant musicality by Madou Kouyaté (son of Bassekou Kouyaté and member of his group Ngoniba). Madou, the youngest member of Trio Da Kali, also adds rich harmonies with his deep breathy voice to the songs. Trio Da Kali were founded in 2013 under the initiative of the Aga Khan Music Programme, with the help of three-times Grammy-nominated music producer Lucy Durán. The Trio first rose to international fame with their sublime album Ladilikan (World Circuit Records 2017), featuring an unprecedented and multi-award-winning collaboration with Kronos Quartet, the legendary classical string quartet from San Francisco. Bagola is a showcase of Trio Da Kali"s entrancing and unique sound, only equaled by their magical performances on stage.

A ground-breaking new collaboration for fans of African music (Ali Farka Touré, Oumou Sangaré) as well as contemporary orchestral music (Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, the London Symphony Orchestra)

Kôrôlén is a very special collaboration between two titans in music: Toumani Diabaté, the Grammy-winning Malian kora virtuoso, and the London Symphony Orchestra, renowned worldwide for their performances of orchestral music on record, film and stage.

Diabaté, a griot whose musical lineage stretches back generations, is well known as one of the most creative musicians on the African continent, and is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the iconic sound of the kora to worldwide audiences. No stranger to a genre-defying collaboration, he has recorded two Grammy-winning albums alongside desert blues pioneer Ali Farka Touré, as well as projects with Taj Mahal, Björk, Béla Fleck, Damon Albarn and Afrocubism.

Commissioned as a special project by the Barbican Centre in London and produced by World Circuit, these recordings feature Diabaté and his group of eminent Malian musicians (including Kasse Mady Diabaté and Lassana Diabaté), accompanied by the soaring presence of the LSO, in dedicated arrangements by Nico Muhly and Ian Gardiner and conducted by Clark Rundell.

The title bestowed by Diabaté on this unique and groundbreaking release, ‘Kôrôlén’, translates from the Mandinka language as ‘ancestral’ - a fitting theme for an album that brings together ancient griot melodies and Western orchestral arrangements, resulting in an achingly beautiful and fresh Afro-neo-classical sound that will appeal to admirers of African, traditional and new classical, and ambient music.

You take a trio of the fnest traditonal griot musicians from Mali and put them in a studio with Western music's most revolutonary string quartet - and the resultng album is one of the most richly rewarding musical collaboratons you are likely to encounter.
Together the Kronos Quartet and Trio Da Kali have created an album that is rich in texture, hauntngly melodic and strikingly inventve as violins, viola and cello combine with balafon, ngoni and the powerful female voice of Hawa 'Kassé Mady'
Diabaté in transcendental style. David Harrington, who founded the Kronos Quartet in 1973, describes the album as one of the most beautful Kronos has done in forty years.' All three Da Kali members come from hereditary musical families, Balafon
player and musical director Lassana Diabaté was a long-tme member of Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra and has recorded with Salif Keita, Taj Mahal and many others. A musician of great subtlety and inventon he has honed a virtuoso
two-balafon technique to perfecton. Bass ngoni player Mamadou Kouyaté is the eldest son of the instrument's greatest exponent, Bassekou Kouyaté and he holds down the groove in his father's band 'Ngoni Ba'. Singer Hawa 'Kassé Mady' Diabaté
is the daughter of Mali's greatest traditonal singer, Kassé Mady Diabaté, and the power, range and phrasing of her voice led David Harrington to compare her to the late queen of American gospel, Mahalia Jackson.
Kronos Quartet have earned an enviable reputaton collaboratng with contemporary composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Laurie Anderson and with world music icons from Argentnian tango hero Astor Piazzola to Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle.