Ba Cissoko is a Guinean world music band, featuring four members, two of which are playing the traditional Kora harp.
The other two band members play percussions and bass, respectively. The sound of the band has been described as "West
Africa meets Jimi Hendrix". The band is named after the lead singer and electronical Kora player, Ba Cissoko, the
nephew of the kora maestro M'Bady Kouyaté. Band members include Sekou Kouyaté also on kora, bass player Kourou Kouyaté,
both Ba Cissoko's younger cousins. In addition, the band includes Ibrahima Bah on percussions.
In 2008, the band recorded the song Sunday Bloody Sunday available on the U2 rock group album In The Name Of Love:
Africa Celebrates U2.
When born a Cissoko, one is a kora player. The Guinean Ba Cissoko perpetuates a more than centenary history. Ba is the
last born of a long lineage of griots, master singers and agile string pluckers.
He knows all the codes and secrets of tradition. He estimates its reach, for posterity, but he isn’t the kind of
artist who reproduces the work of his illustrious elders, starting with his uncle, M’Bady Kouyaté, who passed him
his knowledge on since he was a child, and transmitted to him his entire patrimony. Since then, Ba Cissoko has
emancipated himself without ever breaking that link, renewing his instrument’s approach while refining his
knowledge of the art and of the good manners of storytelling.
“To modernize the mandigue tradition to better spread it; to transgress it, to really honour it” Ba says.
