Foday Musa Suso (born 9 December 1953, in Sarre Hamadi,

Wuli District Wuli District was one of the four districts of the former Upper River Division of the Gambia The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country with ...

, in the

Upper River Division Upper River was one of the five Divisions of the Gambia. Its capital was Basse Santa Su. It was subsequently reorganised as the Basse Local Government Area, without any change in the area covered. Per 2013 census, the region had a population ...

of The Gambia) is a Gambian musician and composer. He is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group, and is a

griot A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repos ...

. Griots are the oral historians and musicians of the Mandingo people who live in several west African nations. Griots are a living library for the community providing history, entertainment, and wisdom while playing and singing their songs. It is an extensive verbal and musical heritage that can only be passed down within a griot family. Suso is a direct descendant of Jali Madi Wlen Suso, the griot who invented the kora over four centuries ago. He spent his childhood in a traditional Gambian village, in a household filled with kora music. Though his father was a master kora player, in griot tradition a father does not teach his own children the instrument. When Foday was nine, his father sent him to live with master kora teacher Sekou Suso in the village of Pasamasi, Wuli District. He trained with Sekou Suso until the age of 18. Suso's primary instrument is the kora, but he also plays the

gravikord The Gravikord is a 24 string electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1984, which is closely related to both the West African kora and the mbira. It was designed to employ a separated double tonal array structure making it possibl ...

and several other instruments. Suso emigrated to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, United States in 1977, being one of the first jali's to relocate to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Once in Chicago, he formed the Mandingo Griot Society with local

percussionist A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

Hamid Drake Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and Afr ...

and

Adam Rudolph Adam Rudolph (born September 12, 1955) is a jazz composer and percussionist performing in the post-bop and world fusion media. In 1988, Rudolph met jazz musician Yusef Lateef, and the two would go on to collaborate and perform together for t ...

, which played fusion music around the world. He has performed with

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...

Jack DeJohnette Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, ...

Ginger Baker Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019) was an English drummer. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer", for a style that melded jazz and Music of Africa, Africa ...

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...

Yousif Sheronick Yousif Sheronick (born 1967, Cedar Rapids, IA) is a percussionist, arranger, and composer, who works in classical, world, jazz and rock genres. Biography The child of Lebanese immigrants, Sheronick graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Ce ...

, and the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

(''

Pieces of Africa ''Pieces of Africa'' is a 1992 studio album by the Kronos Quartet, containing works commissioned by the quartet, written by seven African composers. Track listing Critical reception According to AllMusic the Quartet avoids cultural imperialism ...

''). He has contributed to music for the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

in 1984 and 2004. His electrified kora can also be heard on several tracks on

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he help ...

's 1984

electro-funk Electro (or electro-funk)Rap meets T ...

album '' Sound-System''. The following year, Suso and Hancock came out with another album, '' Village Life'', that consists entirely of duets between them, Hancock on synthesizer and Suso on kora,

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to change the pitc ...

s, and vocals.

Discography

* 1970 - ''Kora Music from Gambia'' ( Folkways) * 1979 - Mandingo Griot Society: ''Mandingo Griot Society'' (

Flying Fish The Exocoetidae are a family of marine fish in the order Beloniformes class Actinopterygii, known colloquially as flying fish or flying cod. About 64 species are grouped in seven to nine genera. While they cannot fly in the same way a bird do ...

) * 1982 - Mandingo Griot Society: ''Mighty Rhythm'' (Flying Fish) * 1984 - ''Hand Power'' (Flying Fish) * 1984 - Mandingo Featuring Foday Musa Suso: ''Watto Sitta'' (

Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...

), produced by

* 1984 -

: '' Sound-System'' ( Columbia), guest appearances * 1985 - with Herbie Hancock: '' Village Life'' (Columbia) * 1986 - ''Mansa Bendung'' (Flying Fish) * 1988 - ''The Dreamtime'' (CMP), solo recording produced by Bill Laswell * 1985 - with Herbie Hancock: '' Jazz Africa'' (

Verve Verve may refer to: Music * The Verve, an English rock band * ''The Verve E.P.'', a 1992 EP by The Verve * ''Verve'' (R. Stevie Moore album) * Verve Records, an American jazz record label Businesses * Verve Coffee Roasters, an American coffee ho ...

) * 1992 - with

: ''Music from "The Screens"'' ( POINT Music) * 1995 - with Possession & African Dub: '' Off World One'' (Sub Meta), produced by Bill Laswell, FMS plays

balaphone The balafon is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé peoples, Mandé, Senufo people, Senoufo and Gur languages, Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch ...

* 1996 - with

: '' Message from Home'' (Verve), guest appearance * 2005 - with

: '' Music from the Hearts of the Masters'' (Golden Beams) * 2005 - with Jack DeJohnette's The Ripple Effect: ''Hybrids'' (Golden Beams) * 2008 - ''The Two Worlds'' (Orange Mountain Music) * 2012 - with Gretchen Rowe: ''Koralations: Heart to Heart'' (African Kora meets American Poetry)

Sources

*''Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa & Beyond'' (1996). Book and CD set. Ellipsis Arts

References

External links

Foday Musa Suso official siteFoday Musa Suso page
from Other Minds site
''Kora Music from Gambia'' Album Details
at

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fou ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suso, Foday Musa 1953 births Living people Jazz fusion musicians Gambian singers Gambian emigrants to the United States American people of Mandinka descent Gambian Kora players Griots People from Upper River Division