Learning without a Master

I discovered the kora almost by accident, thanks to a Senegalese friend I met again in France. He gave me the chance to start on a traditional 21-string model, with wooden tuning keys. The first time I touched the instrument, something awakened in me: a fascination, a call.

At first, I fumbled. I learned by copying, or with the help of a small software called Jaliya, which offered a few tablatures. I played “Jarabi” by Toumani Diabaté, the essential piece that almost every beginner kora player goes through. But soon, frustration grew: I felt the kora had so much more to offer, and I was thirsty to discover its secrets.

Like many, I would have liked to have a master. Someone to open the doors to the repertoire, to transmit the subtle gestures and nuances. But I couldn’t afford it. I felt that lack deeply: like being alone in front of an immense ocean, with a fragile boat and no compass.

Rather than giving up, I chose to turn this solitude into a driving force. I told myself, “If I cannot enter this tradition through the main door, perhaps it’s because I must forge my own path. After all, I wasn’t born a griot; my white skin places me outside this heritage… maybe that’s exactly where my difference lies, and what I have to express.”

I then turned toward new horizons: Western music, tunes from the diatonic accordion, and my own compositions. I also built my first 32-string kora to expand my sonic possibilities. From that period emerged my first album, La valse de ma kora — a kind of travel diary in which I was slowly discovering my own path.

Gradually, I learned to make these two worlds converse: to keep the essence of traditional playing while opening it to my own way of thinking about music. To invent a hybrid language, one deeply my own.

Looking back now, I realize that not having a master was a true opportunity. Lack, after all, always fuels creativity. With no model to follow, I had to invent my own path. And this style, which is mine, makes no claim to belong to a tradition I didn’t grow up in; it simply seeks to engage in dialogue with it.