“Why do you create?”

“Why do you create?”

— Creating is not just an activity; it is a way of inhabiting this life. For as long as I can remember, I have felt that we are here on earth to invent, to transform, to search for new forms. Apart from nature itself, everything around us is the fruit of human creation. To create is to take time, to let thought evolve, to place one’s hands on the material and listen to what it whispers. It is a way of resisting, but also a way of hoping.

Often, it is within constraint that creation finds its greatest strength. With limited means, imagination sharpens, and lack becomes richness. Africa is a shining example of this.

“What guided you down this path?”

— My background as a cabinetmaker taught me the rigor and perfectionism that define me, and that now guide me in both instrument making and music. Each instrument I create carries this dual heritage: a demand for detail and a sonic quest, between memory and invention, in two different worlds bound by the same standard of excellence.

“You seem drawn to complexity…”

— I’ve often been told that I gravitate toward what seems complicated, sometimes even impossible. Perhaps it’s true: it is in these challenges that I find the drive to create. The Jazzy-Kora is a perfect example—born from a dream that once seemed unattainable.

“And what about patents and ownership?”

— Patents, commerce, ownership? That is not my path. Filing a patent means freezing, locking, putting a price on something that should continue to evolve. And besides, to whom do today’s luthiers pay royalties for the anonymous geniuses who invented the kora or the balafon centuries ago? To no one. I would rather spend my time creating new instruments or new music than locking my ideas behind legal walls.

“Are your instruments meant to be shared, to be sold?”

— I do not intend to sell my instruments. They are my language, my field of research, my way of being original in both material and sound. Their purpose is not to be multiplied, but to exist, to resonate, to accompany my compositions and improvisations.

“So then, what is creation to you?”

— Perhaps it is simply this: a series of notes bursting forth in a fraction of a second during an improvisation. Sometimes they harmonize, sometimes they clash. But it is this imbalance that gives uniqueness to creation. In the end, creating is a way of life, an energy that flows through every part of existence and connects us to the feeling of being useful.

Well… I suppose it’s time to stop talking to myself, or I’ll end up contradicting myself!