Foday Musa Suso (born 9 December 1953, in Sarre Hamadi, Wuli District, in the Upper River Division 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 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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

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

s Hamid Drake 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, ...

, Philip Glass, Pharoah Sanders, Jack DeJohnette,

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 African rhythms and pi ...

, Paul Simon, Yousif Sheronick, 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''). 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 vari ...

in 1984 and 2004. His electrified kora can also be heard on several tracks on Herbie Hancock'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 d ...

) * 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 contemporary ...

), produced by

* 1984 - Herbie Hancock: '' 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) * 1992 - with Philip Glass: ''Music from "The Screens"'' ( POINT Music) * 1995 - with Possession & African Dub: '' Off World One'' (Sub Meta), produced by Bill Laswell, FMS plays balaphone * 1996 - with Pharoah Sanders: '' Message from Home'' (Verve), guest appearance * 2005 - with Jack DeJohnette: '' 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 fo ...

{{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