Does music have the power to heal, and specifically, is the ngoni uniquely equipped to facilitate that healing? Kouyate: "The very music in question is a medicine, even when you are made to listen ...

Kouyate performed three songs from his new album, as well as a favorite from his 2007 debut, a showcase for the ngoni called "Ngoni Fola," or "beautiful ngoni." After listening to Bassekou and his ...

Kampala — Some Ugandan music stories sound so fantastic that, listening to them, you could almost swear they are made up. Yet most of them are true. At least this one, the Ngoni story ...

His advanced class, known as Ngoni ba Junior, have already picked up gigs at some of Mali's music festivals; the younger group are mastering the basics. "You know, do-re-mi-fa-so," he explains.

His favorites include music from Mali, Brazil ... pickers puts the spotlight on his humble-looking instrument -- the ngoni lute -- and makes it roar. Four ngonis cut a wide swath through this ...

The bass and tenor-register ngonis in Ngoni Ba, founded in 2005, were invented by Mr. Kouyate, and they bring extra layers of counterpoint to what was already intricate, quick-fingered music.

From his early days in Bamako when he was playing in a trio together with Toumani Diabate and Keletigui Diabate till today where he is pursuing his own career, Bassekou has transformed the traditional ...

Along with the instrumentalists in Ngoni Ba come the impassioned vocals of Kouyaté’s wife, Amy Sacko, known as “the Tina Turner of Mali.” The songs deal with such subjects as mean people ...

His wife, singer Ami Sacko, also appears on Fleck’s album on the song “Kandjo.” In the footsteps of his ancestors, he believes his children will carry on the family ngoni tradition.

playing the five-string ngoni, an instrument whose role in West African music is equivalent to that of the rhythm guitar in Western rock. Its scratchy, mesmeric plucking is a mainstay of the ...

The music flowed naturally with all the musicians taking the front at one point or another but the focus was always either on Amy Sacko as she sang and danced or on Bassekou Kouyate as his ngoni ...