'My first job as a griot is to tell about our culture' says African musician N'faly Kouyate
N’faly Kouyate is the dynamic group leader of his band Dunkayan (The Voice of the World) and has been a core member of the Afro Celts Sound System. Talking to him from his home in Belgium, it is clear that this is a man who not only takes his music seriously for its own sake, but who is doing much more than that.
Born into a famous griot family in Guinea, he is deeply rooted in Mandingue culture and traditions. His father was a famous griot and devout traditionalist and it is N’faly’s mission through his music, to continue his father’s legacy, to bring the Mandingue culture to audiences across the world. As he says, ‘my first job as a griot is to tell about our culture and our history. I am a guardian, it is important that I continue the work of my ancestors. I am a walking library, a place where our history and culture is written for our people’. This culture and history is at the very core of his music, ‘I draw 70% of my inspiration directly from the griot tradition.’
Not only the lyrics, but the choice of instruments is used for this purpose. N’faly himself plays the kora and the balafon, ‘these are my griot family instruments’, but he incorporates other traditional instruments into his arrangements as well. N’faly mixes these and others with western instruments in a very particular way, ‘the guitar we play with the mandingue style, and we use the violin on some tracks like Kora ballade. There we use the violin and cello also, but we mix the musical language.’ N’faly is also passionate about other mixes, ‘in my house there are many, many people, white people and black people. I would like to show that this old thinking about white people and black people in Africa is finished now.’ In N’faly’s case these are not empty words, he walks the talk. His band is made up of members from Guinea, France and Belgium. Together they have played many concerts across Europe, where they have been well received, ‘I like European audiences, when you play for them the first time they take 15 or 20 minutes first to discover the instruments; they try to listen to the music, try to understand and then … then they cannot stop dancing!’
True to his mission N’faly takes the message of Africa with him into every show, ‘I like to take some time to talk to the audience and tell them about the instruments the history and our people.” But his dream is to do an extensive tour of Africa. “We have been to Zanzibar and to South Africa, to Durban and Zululand. We played in many villages there. It was fantastic!’ With his kind of energy and obvious commitment, this may well be a dream that comes true, but in the meantime more tours of the UK are in the pipeline for Dunkayan, as is a new album which he hopes to bring out in 2010. Whether he will fit all of this into his schedule is another matter. N’faly and his wife also run a non-profit music school in Belgium, Cadence Mandingue, where classes in many traditional African instruments, as well as African dance and song are given.
Talking to this quiet spoken, but sincere and inspirational man, one is left with no doubt that the message of this tireless son of Africa will touch many people’s lives.
