A complex instrument resembling that of a melodic harp, the kora is a twenty-one-string lute. It is played in between the legs and plucked with the forefingers and thumbs.

Many griots spend years learning the skill of playing the kora – a traditional griot instrument. Griots make their own koras (by stretching cowhide over a calabash) and often attach gris-gris charms to their own instruments.

Mory Kanté’s kora was a gift to him and it is now over eighty years old. When he was 13 years old he would visit a friend in Bamako, Mali whose father was a famous kora player. When the kora was not in use, Mory would take the instrument into the garden and play with it. One day the old man caught Mory playing and was amazed. After that he gave the kora to Mory and told him that it would take care of him for the rest of his life.

Mory Kanté is now considered to be one of the best kora players in the world and he was the first person to electrify the instrument. Although many elders at the time disagreed with this, it has now opened the door for many young artists.

The balafon or bala is an African xylophone, with eighteen to twenty-one keys cut from rosewood and suspended on a bamboo frame over gourd resonators of graduated sizes. Two musicians often play it at the same time – one person performing the basic riff while the other improvises.

When Mory Kanté was undergoing his griot training, his principal instrument – and the Kanté family’s emblematic instrument – was the balafon.

Probably the best kora player in the world and an extremely accomplished guitarist and balafon player, Mory Kanté also plays numerous other traditional African instruments.