Mamadou Diabaté was born in 1975 in Kita, a Malian city long known as a center for the arts and culture of the Manding people of West Africa. As the name Diabate indicates, Mamadou comes from a family of griots, or jelis as they are known among the Manding. Jelis are more than just traditional musicians. They use music and sometimes oratory to preserve and sustain people's consciousness of the past, a past that stretches back to the 13th century when the Manding king Sunjata Keita consolidated the vast Empire of Mali...
These are videos from concerts where Mamadou Diabate played, so they may be of other bands that played the concert as well.
Blue Mountains Music Festival Mar 14 - 16, 2008 Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia Added by Adam Wilkinson
