Toumani Diabaté, Malian Kora Virtuoso, Dies at 58

Toumani Diabaté, Malian master of the traditional, 21-stringed West African instrument the kora, has died, The New York Times reports. Diabaté’s manager Saul Presa confirmed the news to The Times, stating that the musician died on Friday, July 19, in a hospital in Bamako, Mali, due to kidney failure. Toumani Diabaté was 58 years old.

Diabaté’s legacy as a 71st-generation kora player was indebted to traditional applications of the classical instrument—including spiritual and meditative music—but Diabaté also adored the cross-pollination of modern sounds. Throughout his decades-long recording career, he collaborated with Björk, Taj Mahal, Damon Albarn, Béla Fleck, Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, and many others.

Born in Bamako in 1965, Diabaté descended from a long line of griots—West African historian-musicians who maintain oral traditions, often with the accompaniment of the kora or the xylophone-like balafon. Diabaté’s father, Sidiki Diabaté Sr., was a celebrated maestro of the kora, and his mother, Nene Koita, was a singer. Despite living in close proximity to a kora aficionado, however, Toumani Diabaté taught himself by listening to his father and grandfather play. Toumani’s son Sidiki is also primarily self-taught; they played together on two of Diabaté’s albums, Toumani & Sidiki, from 2014, and 2017’s Lamomali.

Diabaté began his professional career when he was just 13, playing with a group from Koulikoro, Mali. At age 19, he joined a backing band for Malian singer and kora player Kandia Kouyaté. In the late 1980s, Diabaté moved to London for a brief period after meeting British producer and musicologist Lucy Durán, who worked on many of Diabaté’s albums throughout the years, starting with his solo debut, Kaira, in 1988.

In addition to albums with blues legend Taj Mahal and banjoist Béla Fleck, Diabaté cut two LPs with the celebrated Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré: 2005’s In the Heart of the Moon and 2010’s Ali and Toumani, both of which won Grammy Awards for Best Traditional World Music Album. Diabaté also recorded on Björk’s 2007 album, Volta, and joined her live in concert the following year.

Gorillaz and Blur’s Damon Albarn was also a friend and collaborator of the late musician. Albarn enlisted Diabaté for his 2016 Mali Music project, and, in turn, performed at Festival Acoustik Bamako—an event co-created by Diabaté in response to the deadly attack on a Bamako hotel in 2015.

In a 2007 interview with Pitchfork, Diabaté elaborated on his love of intertiwining culutures and genres: “Music has been created as its own language, you know? The ‘G’ on the kora is the same ‘G’ that’s on a piano. It’s the same ‘G’ that Carlos Santana was playing. The ‘B’ on the kora is the same as the one that the hip hop people have.”