TOUMANI DIABATÉ: I want to try to find something to eat, but it’s very late here. It’s 3:45am, so I’ve just ordered something from room service. So I’m still eating right now. The concert was late. So maybe we can talk again in 15 minutes?

DUMBO FEATHER: Of course, sure.

OK. G’day mate.

[15 mins passes]

Have you been able to finish your food?

Yeah… it’s seven past four here.

Are you usually a night time person?

Yeah, sometimes because of working, a concert and that stuff. So sometimes yeah but you know, on tour—the tour we’re doing now is very, very heavy. It’s very heavy. It’s a heavy tour, so what can we do? It’s not easy. I don’t like to eat before the show. I can eat like little things but after the show I always need to eat because I need to be comfortable. That’s the story.

Where are you, in France at the moment? Why is it such a heavy tour?

Yeah, in France. We drove yesterday 12 hours on the bus from Belgium to France, and we get here around three. That was Wednesday, we get here 3pm and then we went to the sound check at 4pm to 6pm and then come back to the hotel. Went back at 9pm and start the concert at 10:30pm until midnight or 1am, and then we went back to the hotel and tried to find something to eat, and then went to bed around 2am or 3am, and wake up at 6am this morning, and drive four or five hours to a place called Marciac.

Between the hotel and the festival place is like 35 miles, so we went straight to do the sound check and then come back to the hotel, take a shower—because we left this morning before a shower—then go back again. Only two hours we had, go back again, drive 35 miles again. It is not a motorway; it’s a small road, in the hills. Then we drive there and start the concert at 11pm until 1am or 1:30am, and then drive again at 3am, 35 miles to come back to the hotel and try to find something to eat. Now I have to do this interview with you. I am really tired.

I’m sure this is not what you want to be doing at the moment so I appreciate you being available. Was the running around worth it? How did the show go tonight?

It was fantastic. It was being broadcast through Radio France International. It was fantastic. I read that it’s been 35 years now this festival is happening. It’s a jazz festival at the small town called Marciac, Jazz in Marciac. It’s a very nice town and people are very nice. It was sold out and the concert went well.

African music has had a good reception in France for a while, hasn’t it?

Yeah, now it’s not only in France. But most of the countries in West Africa are French colonies and it’s much easier for African people to travel from Africa to Paris because Paris is on the border. They know there’s a lot of African people living in France also. [The French] know better, a little bit better than other places like in Belgium. Or at least that was before, 20 years ago before.

But now you cannot see any festival [in Europe] without African musicians.

Discussions with people after the show are one of your favourite parts of touring. Have you been able to do much of that on this tour, or have you been rushing around a bit too much?

We really don’t get the time on this tour because we have 34 concerts in two months and we are 16 people on the road, so it’s too much things going on at the same time. Interviews, playing on stage, communication with the audiences, and not enough sleep, no (laugh) real food like I like, so it’s not easy.

It’s getting away from some of that stuff it sounds like you really enjoy about music in a way.

It’s lucky somehow because

there are amazing musicians in the world today and everyone wants to work. Everyone wants to do something.

We’re always following the job. It was good. It’s still good and we’re lucky to get 34 concerts in the summertime and touring around the world. Teaching people about our culture.

It’s 16 people in the group, doing that teaching?

Yeah, 16 people, we had 13 on stage because this is the Afro-Cubism tour. So we have 13 on stage plus two soundmen and sound manager.

Let’s go back to basics and talk about your beautiful instrument, the kora. What is its significance?

Well the kora has a 700 hundred year history, from when the Mali empire was there in West Africa. The empire countries were Mali, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Mauritania, and some parts of Nigeria. The king was living in Mali. At that time, there was not any written book about the histories so a people called Griot people—passed from father to son—they take care of the whole events happen in the empire. It’s where I come from, so

from 700 years ago until now, we still have this Griot job or society.

The Griot people is the one who play as the peacemakers, as ambassadors of Mandinka culture, and is advisor in the society in West Africa. Music has been always a good way to make a communication so Griot people has a music, has kora, has balafon, has ngoni, has djembe to do the Griot job. And the man play the music and instruments, woman sing and dance and clap their hands.

So kora is made with calabash gourd and cow skin and fishing line. In the past we use antelope skin for strings but now we are using fishing line for the kora. To play, you have to use four fingers. It is 21 strings. Kora is the West African harp. My father became “King of the Kora” in 1977 in Lagos at the festival called FESTAC; it was the Pan-African festival in Nigeria in 1977, and

my dad become a “King of the Kora.” That is the story about the kora.

You’ve become a bit of an ambassador for the kora and educating people in African music. You’ve been doing workshops and festivals and local events through the Mandinka Kora Productions Group?

Yes. Mandinka Kora Production was started many years ago. I started it in 1992 and Mandinka Kora Production is still rolling. I have a recording studio in Mali called Africa Studio. It’s a digital recording studio and I have my own school about kora; people come to learn how to play the kora. I’m also ambassador of United Nation of Aids, (UNAIDS) and I’m doing that also.

How did that come about?

Many great artists are ambassadors, goodwill ambassadors of different [groups]—like UNICEF, like everything. I just am lucky that I get the chance to be the ambassador of United Nation of AIDS (UNAIDS) and

just to give this message to the public, to the audiences to say stop stigmatization and discrimination. It’s my job and I’m proud and very happy to do this.

You’re also teaching at the Conservatory in Mali?

I’m teaching at the Conservatory, where my son is studying. I’m teaching the kora and the traditional instruments.

We were talking before about Paris and France. In the ‘70s and ‘80s some of the stars of Malian music relocated to places like London and Paris. Has that ever been a temptation for you or are you happy in Mali doing the education and all of those things?

No, I was living in London for a while before, 20 years ago. [But] I like to be in touch with my family and my culture so then I can come [overseas] for playing, meeting people, and go back home.

You’ve done some recent shows over there in Europe playing interpretations of your collaborator Ali Farka Touré, is that right?

Yeah, it’s not exactly like Ali Farka Touré because we did two albums together. We won the Grammy Awards two times, in the Best Traditional World Music categories for The Heart of the Moon and Ali and Toumani. So it’s not trying to do the same music again but it’s giving it a different way. I got a chance to be with Ali and at [his] last moment. We were very good friends. The experience of playing with Ali, I give him something and I learn also something from him, so what people will hear now is my experience playing with Ali.

You’ve talked before about music being a form of communication. I wondered if it was a way of communicating this music of your friend as well?

Yes of course, Ali was a very nice person. Playing his stuff again now is just my experience, you know? One day maybe later in the future other person, other people can do something different also. This is the way that I appreciate to play Ali’s music and collaboration we did together.

In your recordings, you’ve generally played the kora alone or in small groups, like your collaboration with Ali?

Yes, kora can be played solo, but also he can be at the middle of everything, you know? The kora has three possibilities. You can play the bass line and you can make also the melody and also you can improvise on one kind. It’s a complete instrument.

Kora is an ID card of Mande culture.

We have a lot of traditional instruments in West Africa, like a balafon, like ngoni, but those instruments you can find them in different countries of Africa and also outside of Africa. But the kora is the only instrument you cannot find anywhere except West Africa Mande countries. That’s the reason I say kora is a passport of Mande culture.

I read you were given a kora by your father when you were 18, is that right?

Yeah.

I know your son plays as well, did you continue that tradition of passing a kora on to him?

Yeah of course, I’m the 71st. I am the 71st generation and my son is the 72nd generation. His name is Sidiki. Sidiki is a great kora player. He’s studying at the Conservatory in Mali. He plays kora, he plays keyboard, he’s a beatmaker. Also he has a band: he has a hip hop band in Mali so he’s in between the artist’s job and the Griot job. It’s between them.

How does the kora sound in hip hop?

Fantastic. It’s unbelievable. It’s what I tell them. I say, well, you have to be yourself. Don’t try to follow Americans, don’t try to follow the French people, but you have your own histories here.

You have to be proud of your history. You have to be proud of your culture and your history, who is the Mande Empire is.

So then people they start to work on that way. The kora is fantastic on that.

With your own work as a musician I guess you’ve kept that history in mind, but you’ve also helped to evolve it in some other ways. Do you think that the kora music sounds the same now as it did when your grandfather or your father started playing, or has it changed?

No, it’s very changed. Things need to be changed. Everything has to be changed. I’m lucky kora was a gift from God to me. I never learned how to play the kora with anybody in my life. So I’m just enjoying and being happy with that. My son, I can give him a lesson, I’m still giving him some lessons for the bass. Now he can do what he want.

You learned by playing along to tapes?

Right, I was listening to very great bands like Otis Redding, Jimmy Hendrix. I was listening to Rail Band of Bamako. I was listening to The Ambassadors of Bamako, Salif Keita. So lots of stuff. I was curious and I wanted to because I see my place. The music, music has its own language because A, B, C, D in the guitar is the same in the piano, is the same in Sydney, it’s the same in Paris, it’s the same in Mali.

Have you been collaborating with anyone else recently? I know you’ve done quite a few in the recent past with Björk and Damon Albarn and the like, or are you focusing on touring at the moment?

I did some things in Australia with a didgeridoo player. I call sometimes didgeridoo player to play, to come and join me. His name is Ganga. We met and we played together. I play in all of great city in Australia: Canberra, Byron Bay, Melbourne, Sydney Opera House, the west coast, Mullumbimby, Port Fairy Folk Festival.

I had one other question we can maybe finish up with because I’m sure you want to get to bed. There’s a phrase I saw you use in another interview called “playing in a soft way,”—that this is how you approach the kora. What did you mean by that?

Playing the soft way—the music doesn’t need to play all strings to be very much faster, like I don’t know. (Pause) It’s just to play a good note on the right time. Just play the good music and

that’s the point. To make music to touch the people. It’s not a rock and roll band playing the kora. It’s a spirituality.

People need to understand that, really.

No one’s ever played an electric kora?

Oh yeah my son played the kora with pedals and lots of stuff. I prefer the natural sound. I’m not complaining. He is taking his good time, and I like that.

Thanks for staying up.

Thank you very much. See you very soon.

Hope to see you in Australia.

G’day mate.