Dounia

Ibrahim Nabo is a Songhai from the north of Mali and makes a fuller, somewhat more modern sound with the addition in places of electric bass and guitar but which is still steeped in traditional rhythms. Particularly notable is the thrilling call-and-response contrast between his own gritty vocals and the sweeter tones of his female backing singers. In his 60s, Sina Sinayoko is by far the oldest of the three and also plays music associated with Mali's hunters' societies. Singing in a deeply resonant, folk-rich voice, which will probably have someone calling him 'the African Johnny Cash', his take is quite different from Coulibaly's more unmediated sound and is accompanied by the gentler tones of the simbi, a Malink version of the hunter's harp.