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• n  a storyteller in West Africa; perpetuates the oral traditions of a family or village

• Haley learned about his earliest ancestors from an elderly Gambian griot (storyteller), a living repository of oral history who sat him down in the tiny village of Juffure and .
• In the beginning, when mbalax a blend of Senegal's traditional griot percussion and praise singing with modern Afro-Cuban arrangements was starting off, it was never a question .
• N'Dour has made mbalax a blend of Senegal's traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban musicfamous throughout the world during more than 20 years of .

News & Articles

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• Q&A with Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba
  Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba is a group composed of native Senegalese griot musician Diali Cissokho, as well as numerous other North Carolinian musicians who share his love of music based on the Manding tradition. The group plays Wednesday as a part of Duke Garden’s Music in the Gardens concert series.
  June 26, 2013 - The Daily Tar Heel

Quotes

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• Toumani Diabate in San Francisco Chronicle
  If West Africa was a living being, the griot would be the blood,Diabate says over lunch at his Bamako home, scooping couscous and fish from a silver tray on his Persian-carpeted floor. "As griots, we are the memory, we are the link between...
• Thabo Mbeki in BBC News
  In a statement, President Thabo Mbeki said she had been "a Pan-African griot, making souls rise in bliss wherever her voice reached."
• Stevie Wonder in DetNews.com
  About Hayes, Wonder said: "In African history, the griot is a storyteller. He is the village keeper of history. Every time a griot dies, it is like a library burning to the ground. Isaac Hayes was a griot of song. He captured the excitement,...