REQ: Sonic Collective Kirina Lolow Sounds of Mali

Kirina is a Griot village in Mali, home to 70 generations of musical and cultural heritage. The Griots play an essential role in Malian culture; they are the keepers of oral history and traditions, passing them on through music and poetry. Kirina has been preserving its unique musical and cultural heritage for more than 700 years and L'Ecole de musique de Kirina is a school dedicated to this preservation.

Mahamadou Diabaté, a Malian musician and descendant of a griot family that has played music since the 13th century, serves as the director of L'Ecole de musique and collaborated with field recordists and composers Susie Ibarra and Jake Landua to produce a sample archive in the spirit of music anthropology for Sonic Collective. In Bambara, the language spoken in Kirina and its surrounding region in Mali, “Lolow” means stars. Here are their names: