Roots & Wings Listening Post 301. Nakany Kanté’s third album evokes a place where disparate cultures and experiences harmonize, each home displays artifacts reflecting the owner’s origins and precious pieces acquired on journeys of discovery, and each soul is...
Of Lions and Moss Listening Post 253. Everyone loves a love song, which explains why nobody composed What the World Needs Now is Responsibility Sweet Responsibility. Everyone touts diversity, yet there is Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All time”...
Rivers & Blues Listening Post 132. Unlike Robert Frost, obliged to choose between diverging roads in a yellow wood, the singer-songwriter Moh! Kouyaté was able to take two routes at once. On his geographic journey he retraced the course of the blues from the Niger...
Home Run Listening Post 60. Traffic, drought and Kardashians may dent the Los Angeles brand, but the city still charmed Habib Koité, the great Malian singer-songwriter and descendant of griots. L.A. is his tribute song, favorably measuring Southern California’s sun,...
Voice of a Continent Listening Post 26. As a singer-songwriter, percussionist, choreographer and dancer, Dobet Gnahoré brings life experience to her music. In the Ki-Yi Mbock Company, a theater ensemble and training village in her native Côte d’Ivoire, she encountered...
One Fine Day Listening Post 15. Most singer-songwriters master notes, but few are as steeped in history as Moh! Kouyaté. Born into a family of griots—the West African bards who impart stories and oral history through song—he brings centuries of heritage to his music....
