Issa Bagayogo

Given the circumstances of his birth and upbringing, Issa Bagayogo's accomplishments as a groundbreaking artist fusing traditional and electronic music might seem unlikely. Born in 1961 to a farming family in Korin, a poor village 30 miles from the nearest town in southern Mali, his fate seemed to be to work the farm his father worked with his four wives and 14 other children. But Bagayogo was drawn to music, first playing the daro, a bell that keeps farm workers laboring. From there, at age 12, he took up the six-string young man's harp, or kamele n'goni, a common instrument ...