Habib Koité (, born 1958 in

Thiès Thiès (; ; Noon language, Noon: ''Chess'') is the third largest city in Senegal with a population of 391,253 in 2023. It lies east of Dakar on the N2 road (Senegal), N2 road and at the junction of railway lines to Dakar, Bamako and Saint-Louis, ...

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

) is a Senegalian-born Malian musician, singer, songwriter and

griot A griot (; ; Manding languages, Manding: or (in N'Ko script, N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicatin ...

based in

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

. His band, Bamada, was a supergroup of

West African West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ma ...

musicians, which included Kélétigui Diabaté on

balafon The balafon (pronounced , or, by analogy with ''xylophone'' etc., ) is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé peoples, Mandé, Bwaba Bobo people, Bobo, Senufo people, Seno ...

Musical style

Koité is known for his approach to playing the guitar by tuning it on a

pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient ci ...

and playing on open strings as one would on a kamale n'goni.

History

Habib was born in Mali in 1958 and enrolled in the National Institute of Arts in

Bamako Bamako is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mali, with a 2022 population of 4,227,569. It is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country. Bamak ...

. In 1988 he formed his first band, Bamada. He released his first solo album, Muso Ko, in 1995, followed by further solo works in later years. Two of his songs, ''I Ka Barra'' and ''Din Din Wo'', from ''Muso Ko'', were included in the Sample Music package included with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

Discography

Albums

* '' Muso Ko'', 1995 * '' Ma Ya'', 1998 * '' Baro'', 2001 * '' Live!'', 2004 * ''

Afriki ''Afriki'' is the fourth studio album by Habib Koité & Bamada, published by Cumbancha Cumbancha is a record label, booking agency and music publisher (popular music), music publisher based in Charlotte, Vermont, United States. The company ...

'', 2007 * ''Acoustic Africa in Concert'', 2011 * ''Brothers in Bamako'', 2012 * ''Soô'', 2014 *Kharifa, 2019

Sources

Habib Koité HomepageBiography at Music-Wire

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koite, Habib Malian musicians 1958 births Living people Bambara-language singers Malian world music musicians Senegalese world music musicians Senegalese musicians Senegalese guitarists Malian guitarists People from Thiès 21st-century Malian people