Jali Nyama Suso

Suso has probably done more than any other musician to promote the kora/jali tradition outside of Africa. He was a competent kora player by age eight; at 16, a fall cost him a leg, rendering him unable to follow the normal jali existence of traveling around and performing at various ceremonies. He started recording for the radio in 1956 and was a national star by the mid-'60s, even being hired to arrange the national anthem. He worked with American musicologists, leading to a teaching job in the U.S., where he was featured on the Roots soundtrack. In the late '70s, he traveled...