Four Ngonis Featured in the "Best Rock and Roll Band in the World"

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba! live in concert.
Photo by Thomas Dorn.

One of Mali’s most important and influential musicians, ngoni virtuoso Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba, have been praised by The Guardian (UK) for a sound that’s “ancient and utterly contemporary…like some African answer to [Jimi] Hendrix.” Hear them on Wednesday, November 16 at 8:00 pm, at Boll Theatre on the University of Dayton campus.

One of the new faces of African music, Bassekou Kouyate has performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the WOMAD Festival, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City and throughout the world. He toured extensively as the ngoni player in Ali Farka Touré’s band and was one of the main musicians on Touré’s posthumous album Savane. In addition to collaborations with Taj Mahal, Vieux Farka Touré and Carlos Santana, Kouyate has appeared on the hit album AfroCubism, Youssou N’Dour’s album Rokku mi Rokka and Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Red Earth, and was featured on Bela Fleck’s Grammy-winning album Throw Down Your Heart and subsequent Africa Project tours. 

No one has been more innovative with the ngoni—a traditional kind of lute played throughout West Africa—than Kouyate, who has forever changed the perception of his chosen instrument. Kouyate, for example, was the first ngoni player to stand while playing, with the ngoni strapped on like a guitar. His most startling innovation was to assemble an ensemble with the ngoni as the lead voice. Having taken that step, he must have thought, “why not four?” Kouyate formed his band, Ngoni Ba (“big ngoni”), in 2005. The Independent in London calls Ngoni Ba “the best rock and roll band in the world.” You read that right: rock and roll band. Not the usual Cityfolk fare.

Their most recent album I Speak Fula was one of Mojo’s Albums of the Year and in the words of Spin, “effortlessly mixes the rapid-fire pluck of bluegrass, the doleful churn of the blues, the joyous pulse of Afropop, and the caffeinated whirl of high-velocity rock.”