Frank Bessem's Musiques d'Afrique: Mamadou Doumba & Mandinka (Mali)

Musiques d'Afrique Musiques du Mali

Mamadou Doumbia is a guitar player as well as player of kora and ngoni living in Japan. Born in Mali, he started playing guitar at age of eleven by copying note for note from favourite songs from Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton or Santana. Later, he got inspired by Malian guitar heros like Djelimady Tounkara, Mama Sissoko and Guinean Ousmane Kouyaté. Whilst a student at the EN.SUP college in Bamako where he studied English, he played in the Bamasaba Band, and by 1982, he was asked to play in the Rail Band. Later, he also played occasionally with Zani Diabaté, Oumou Sangaré and Nahawa Doumbia. In 1986, he settled in Paris, where he worked with Kassemady Diabaté, Sory Bamba and again Nahawa Doumbia. He became the lead guitarist of Salif Keita's band in 1988, and toured extensively. A visit to Japan made a profound impression and he decided to settle definitively in this country. The beginnings were difficult in a country where there were hardly any African musicians but slowly he managed to put himself forward. In September 1993, he created his band Mandinka where is he surrounded by Japanese musicians. On a first acoustic album, Malian and Japanese traditional instruments are combined, the album is now a collectors item outside of Japan. He and his band signed up with a major record company in Japan, JVC, in 1995 and until now, they released two albums, and a maxi-single Birds.

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