Tales of the African harp: the musical history of Senegal

KENNESAW, Ga. - When Morikeba Kouyate sings, a thousand voices of the past are singing with him. 

When Kouyate’s fingers move across the 21 strings of his instrument, 2,000 hands of the past are playing alongside him. 

When Kouyate’s audience leap to their feet in applause, they are cheering for the history of his people and a tradition that he is among a select few to carry forward into the future. But his instrument, the kora, is an endangered art. 

Kouyate has been learning the intricacies of playing the kora since he was 8 years old. His father, and his father before him, had also begun their education of the instrument at the same age. At fourteen, he was already considered a professional in the intricacies of the instrument. 

Playing kora is a generational knowledge that moves through the Jali or Griot people of Senegal, who have been known since the 13th century as the historians of their communities. The term “griot” itself carries a history of controversy and insight into African caste systems. 

“It’s not a choice,” Kouyate said. “You might want to be a president, or whatever you want to be, but you are the only person who can pass that to your kids.”

Kouyate spent his earlier years in the United States living in Chicago. In Illinois, he was known as “Chicago’s Griot” and became widely sought out as a transplant Kora player. 

Kouyate has one daughter and one son who were both raised in the United States. He said that although they are not entirely interested in becoming familiar with the significance of their family’s role in preserving a cultural history, they both have learned bits and pieces of kora playing from their time with him. 

Telling a musical history 

A single song from a kora player can last for a traditional album’s length, Kouyate said. This is because kora music is not simply composed of verses, a bridge, a chorus and a satisfying coda. Rather, it’s a history in itself. 

Songs may trace back ancestry through the decades of a family’s name. Or they may tell a comedic story that hides a moral lesson about life or love. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s article on African musical histories, stories that date back thousands of years are able to stay relevant by weaving in the lives of a new audience with every generation. 

Oumar Diop, an English professor at Kennesaw State University who studies African storytelling, says that many of these principles of stories are similar to Western counterparts. Much of his work revolves around storytelling as a form of political protest again dictatorships and tyrannical uses of authority– but traditional storytelling still maintains some similar themes. They teach acts of kindness, empathy and caring for others. Their difference from Western stories comes through in their presentation; African storytelling is an oral tradition. 

“The difference is, how for example does a storyteller who just uses his or her memory, how do they manage to tell a story that is maybe thousands of words?” Diop said. “They can be told for days, performed for days.” 

The answer differs depending on the region where the story originates. For the most part, oral representations of communities use methods like repetition, alliteration and pneumatic devices to keep track of where they are in a story and how far there is to go. Much like how Western storytellers use these literary devices to keep their audience turning pages, African storytellers mold their stories in a similar way. 

Over the years, folktales or myths can have some alteration because they pass so often through different mouths through time. However, Diop said, the fundamental pillars of these stories remain unchanging as a means to conserve the history of their culture. 

“I think that any community is very much interested in identity construction,” Diop said. “They have to be sure to have some narrative that allows them to know who they are, where they come from.”

In October 1993, the Northeastern University’s Onyx Informer published a lecture review from Black historian Ivan Van Sertima regarding the importance of preserving the cultural histories of Africa. Van Sertima argued that the genocide of these cultural histories through diaspora and enslavement led to a destruction of how Africa is viewed globally, especially in the eyes of European historians. 

"What is past is still with us. We are born with the dead,” Van Sertima said. “We become stupid when we forget,"

The art of storytelling

One of Kouyate’s songs that was performed at Kennesaw State University in April told of a wealthy Gambian man seeking the one thing in life that had evaded him in all his riches: a beautiful wife. He finds a woman in the market one day and inquires for her only to discover that she is happily married. She takes him to her home to meet her husband and parents, to whom the wealthy man gives small fortunes immediately. 

The man promises that if the husband divorces his beautiful wife, she will be made a happy bride with enough dowry to care for the generations of their family to come. The husband agrees with one stipulation: that the wife desires a divorce first. Kouyate leaves his audience on a cliffhanger as he completes the end of this story in his native tongue, Mandinka.

Kora players write their own songs, as well. One of Kouyate’s personal compositions was written when he was first learning his personal style of music. The song is dedicated to his mother. The lyrics, when translated to English, repeatedly say “Mommy, when I grow up, no matter what I do for you, I owe you a lot.”

“My dad used to punish me for not doing my homework, and my mom used to help me a lot for me not to get punished,” Kouyate said. “She named me after her dad. She called me daddy, and I called her mommy.”

Kouyate’s album, “Music of Senegal,” can be listened to on streaming platforms like Apple music or Spotify.

All kora players adapt their musical performances to their styles and personalities. Approaching Kouyate after a performance is an easy task; his demeanor is personable and it didn’t take long for a crowd to circle around him when he left the backstage era of the concert hall. Similarly to how he is off-stage, Kouyate’s personal style of playing involves crowd work. 

Audience member Ethan Altman, a junior architecture student in Marietta, couldn’t help but tap his foot along during the performance.

 “The music welcomed me,” Altman said. “I felt like I was having a one-on-one conversation with the musician.”

Kouyate asks his audience to repeat phrases with him or encourages them to hum along with the tune of his song. Despite the language, story and music often being entirely unfamiliar to his audience, they always fall into the flow of his music quickly in time. His songs are performed in Mandinka, the language of ethnic groups residing in Senegal, Guinea and The Gambia in West Africa. 

“When you get home tonight, you can tell yourself you speak Mandinka,” Kouyate said to his audience in Kennesaw. “If I can speak English now on the stage, you can speak Mandinka.” 

Liesel Nelson, a dance and business student in Kennesaw, attended the April performance. Nelson felt drawn into the “warm and homelike,” trance of the kora music, but felt more moved during one of the call and response songs by Kouyate. 

“The audience at first didn’t really want to participate,” Nelson said. “However, the performer pushed for us to sing with him and I’m very thankful he did. I have never claimed to be a singer, but last night I sang.”

The “African harp”

The kora’s musical capabilities aren’t the only artistic feature of the instrument. The very creation of it takes the hands of an experienced craftsman. More often than not, the craftsman of the instrument is the player himself.  

The instrument is considered an “African harp,” but has many unique features. The kora has 21 strings, the right hand plays 11 and the left hand plays 10. The strings of Kouyate’s kora are made of thin fishing line. The body of the kora, which sits in the musician’s lap, is traditionally a hollowed gourd covered in animal hide. 

Kouyate has three koras that he keeps in his home. Two of the three were hand crafted by him, and the third was made by his brother in Africa. When he goes to visit his home, he will often bring another kora back to his Florida home as well. 

The coda 

At the end of his April performance in Kennesaw, Kouyate steps out from the backstage area and is flooded with applause. When the cheers quiet down, he is asked the same question over and over again: “How does the story end?”

“The woman divorces her husband and marries the rich man,” Kouyate said. “But the day before the wedding, the rich man dies. The woman takes the riches and returns to her husband. They live together forever.”

 With a glowing smile each time, he repeats the ending to every person who asks that night. By the time the story’s end moves through the crowd, it seems like he has told the story a thousand times.