Toumani Diabaté, Sidiki Diabaté, Balla Diabaté, Ahmed Diabaté - HéRitage Toumani Diabaté, Sidiki Diabaté, Balla Diabaté, Ahmed Diabaté

Etoile Audio and Nonesuch Records release Héritage, the last album from Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté, playing in a quartet with his sons, Sidiki, Balla, and Ahmed. This was the first album the Grammy-winning Toumani made with his three sons, who are all accomplished musicians and kora players, before he passed away in July 2024 after a short illness. Earlier that year, he gathered his sons to create his dream project: making music together in an ensemble of koras.

Héritage was recorded in the Diabatés’ Bamako family home. Toumani’s eldest son Sidiki explained, “He wanted to present his family, his heritage, and the work he’s done to the world. His idea was for it to be like a choir, a choir of koras; well organized, well played, very gentle, and very spiritual.”

After Toumani's passing, his daughter Djelika sent the Héritage recordings to Nick Gold, former head of World Circuit Records and founder of Etoile Audio, at Toumani's request. The two had a longstanding friendship and working relationship, including Gold's involvement in producing Toumani’s two Grammy-winning duet albums with Ali Farka Touré.

As Toumani’s longtime friend and former producer Lucy Durán says in her liner note, “Toumani is from a long line of celebrated kora [21-stringed West African harp] players and was raised in the Bamako home that was gifted to his father Sidiki Sr. by the Malian state for his exceptional contribution to the arts.” She continues, “The quartet belongs to the west African lineage of hereditary musicians – djelis (also known more widely by the term griots) – of the Mande people from across West Africa. All three sons began learning the kora from a very early age.”

Balla Diabaté explains that “Mande” was created at around 5am after morning prayer. “We were working on a piece, and the Mali national anthem came on the tele and Toumani said ‘Wait, let’s include that. Give me the kora.’ So we modified it and made it very beautiful.”

Durán adds in her note that the song is “a tribute to Mande culture and heritage. The Mande... ruled the Mali empire and are today found across several West African countries: Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire... [The song] references a very old piece in praise of the art of the djelis, known as ‘Lamban’, originally played on the balafon (xylophone), an instrument that dates back to the time of Sunjata Keita [c. 1235–c. 1255]. It quotes from the old Mande song: ‘War created Mande, war destroys Mande.’ However, the arrangement is completely new, with western harmonies and electric guitar, played by Madou Tounkara.”

Toumani Diabaté, who comes from a long hereditary line of master musicians and griots, was revered as both the guardian of an ancient musical tradition and as a bold, boundary-crossing experimentalist. He earned acclaim for inventive solo records as well as collaborations with Björk, Blur’s Damon Albarn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, American bluesman Taj Mahal, and jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd, among others.

Toumani Diabaté’s album with his Symmetric Orchestra, Boulevard De L'independance (2006); his solo album, The Mande Variations (2008); his Grammy-winning duet records with the legendary Ali Farka Touré, In the Heart of the Moon (2005) and Ali and Toumani (2010); and his duo album with his eldest son, Toumani & Sidiki (2014) all were recorded for World Circuit Records and released by Nonesuch in North America.