From the Uncut archives: a tribute to Mali's king of the kora As tribute to , who has died aged 58 following a short illness, here’s our Album By Album interview with the Malian kora master from Uncut’s February 2011 issue [Take 165]. is the name of the movement that took care of our culture when the French came to colonise Mali. My mum and dad walked around playing our music, from town to town.
My father Sidiki was the king of the kora and his technique was putting the three functions together: bass line, melody and improvisation. When you listen it’s like three men playing at the same time, and I learned the kora that way. So was saying, “Here is my style and my family’s kora style.
” It was like my ID card: “OK, this is the Toumani passport for the Malian style on the kora.” I did it for Joe Boyd at Hannibal Records. He dropped me off at Firehouse studio and went to get something to eat for me.
It was a lovely autumn day in London, and before he came back I’d recorded these five songs. To me that was only the beginning of the album. I wanted to overdub, but Joe came back with the food and said, “No, no, it’s finished.
” I was frustrated, I didn’t understand – let me play! But he said he loved it like this. It was done in one take, no overdubbing. He had rented the studio for three days, but in two and a half hours the record was done.
I wasn’t happy that day, but later on I understood he was right. It was like: “On you’ve listened to Toumani.