Located around the tri-border meeting point of Mali, Ivory Coast, and Guinea, the Wasulu region is home to one of the most unique confluences of culture and identity in West Africa. Renowned for traditionally being hunters, the inhabitants of this region are “of Fula lineage; their cultural framework falls within the Maninka-Bamana matrix; and these two identities intersect in configurations that are specific to the region” (Durán, 1995.) Within this hybridity a curious form of musical expression has emerged, which at once eschews and iterates upon the storied tradition of its predecessors and neighbors. This Wassoulou music (spelled differently to the region, to refer to the music) differentiates itself through its emphasis on freedom, choice and accessibility.
What we refer to now as Wassoulou music is itself a mix of a number of styles and dances performed historically in the Wasulu region, originating from traditional hunter music. What sets it apart, and indeed characterises it, is the centrality of the instrument known as the kamalé ngoni, a smaller version of the traditional hunter’s harp known as the doso ngoni. With its typical pentatonic melodies, the kamalé ngoni is as playful as its diminutive stature suggests, whose sound comes forth through rapid, alternate plucking and a dampening of the strings producing a staccato effect. Accompanying the kamalé ngoni is the karinyan, an iron scraper reminiscent of the guïra often found in the Latin genres of bachata and cumbia, and above it all are the vocals, most often female, which soar over with a burning intensity, contrasting the punctuated percussion of the instrumentation.
Beyond the sonic uniqueness of Wassoulou, however, it is its role as a disruptor and rebel that demands our attention. To understand why, it is important to examine Wassoulou in relation to Malian musical hierarchy. Malian music has been dominated by performers from the jeliw (also known as griot) caste. Griots are a combination of historians, storytellers, praise singers, poets, diplomats and mediators, who have passed down oral histories and songs for many centuries, tracing their origins from the Manding/Mali Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Importantly, griot status is hereditary, and outside entry into this world is strictly taboo (Salif Keita, for example, scandalized his noble-born family by deciding to become a musician.) Bound by tradition, jeliw praise genealogies and recount stories in their songs, using the speech mode known as tarikou which limits the subject matter of their music. Wassoulou musicians, however, are not subject to such restrictions, and this is seen by the epithet assigned to them, kono (bird); through this sobriquet, the true freedom of Wassoulou is revealed.
Many cultures use the metaphor of the bird to refer to their singers. What differentiates the title in Wassoulou music, however, is its use to refer to those who choose to sing, not those bound by caste. Konow (the plural form of kono) operate outside the social hierarchy of the griots, and do not need to sing in tarikou, allowing them considerable freedom to sing on all manner of social issues. Indeed, this sense of rebellion permeates through the history of contemporary Wassoulou music, even within their own region. Their brand of pentatonic hunter music caused a scandal when the kamalé ngoni burst onto the scene. The Wasulu hunter elders, who saw their music as strictly for use in dialogue between man and spirit, were affronted when the modification of their doso ngoni stirred up the festive proclivities of the Wasulu youth. The kamalé ngoni swapped the hunting spirits for the party spirits, composing songs of love and biting satire, allowing a larger audience to enjoy the hunter song and dance outside of these traditional ceremonies (Eyre, 2000.) It is, therefore, no coincidence that Wassoulou music began to garner serious popularity during the anti-Traoré protests of the late 1980s.
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Wassoulou music, as Lucy Durán so elegantly puts it, prides itself on freedom of expression, and expressions of freedom. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than by the plethora of strong, fierce, female singers who have come out of this genre. These songbirds take full advantage of the musical freedom the genre allows, and use the music to sing about women’s rights, advocating against forced marriage, traditional gender roles, and polygamy. Below are three of the most iconic Wassoulou divas.
Sali Sidibe (1969-2019) Salimata Sidibe, born in Yanfolila, Wasulu, was the daughter of the Imam of her village, who refused to let her sing due to her noble heritage. Her first big break came in the 1970s, when the state-sponsored Ensemble Instrumentale du Mali (EIM), after hearing of her talents, came to her village to recruit a singer from the region in a bid to bring together artists from all parts of the country. Facing fierce resistance from her father, despite offers of an array of gifts, fabrics, and even 100,000 CFA francs, he finally relented after his younger brother gave his assent, for “if the younger brother of the father says yes, the father cannot say no.” (Sidibé in Eyre, 2000.) Over the next decade and a half, she built her profile, and eventually became the main singer for the Malian armed forces.
Her break onto the international scene came after a visit from BBC musicologist Lucy Durán, who helped arranged a tour for her and her group, and included her in the compilation album The Wassoulou Sound: Women of Mali (Syllart Productions, 1991), and upon the fall of the Moussa Traoré regime in 1990, when her song Naka Gnami (When Things Get Messed Up) exploded in popularity, she reached the peak of her career. Sali Sidibe remained an iconic exponent of Wassoulou music, until her death in 2019.
Nahawa Doumbia (1961-) Nahawa Doumbia, active for over four decades, also faced obstacles in her quest to become a kono, initially forbidden from singing due to her background as part of the blacksmith caste. She started her career upon winning a contest for the francophone radio station Radio France Internationale, and released her first album, La Grande Cantatrice Malienne, Vol 1, in 1981 (Awesome Tapes From Africa.) This album was recorded alongside N’Gou Bakayoko, who played the guitar and later became her husband. N’Gou Bakayoko is also a respected musician in his own right, achieving international recognition with his 2005 release Kulu (Frikiyiwa.) Nahawa Doumbia, with her strong, almost wailing vocals (reminiscent of Manding jelimusow female singers), surge to the forefront of the mix in all of her recordings, and she sings in “high-tech poetry and metaphor”, giving powerful voice to female expression (O’Brien, 1995.)
Since her debut, a steady stream of albums have followed, including reissues of the Grande Cantatrice Malienne series by the Berlin-based label Awesome Tapes From Africa. Her latest release, Kanawa (Awesome Tapes From Africa, 2021), speaks on the issues that affect Mali in the 21st century – strikes, IS and Al-Qaeda insurgency, and French intervention. The name of the album means Don’t Go, and Nahawa Doumbia urges the Malian youth to stay in their homeland, in an impassioned plea soundtracked by the kamalé ngoni, karinyan and her powerful voice.
Oumou Sangaré (1968-)
Perhaps the most iconic and acclaimed Wassoulou diva, Oumou Sangaré is emblematic of the fiercely independent and outspoken nature of the genre. Winner of the UNESCO International Music Prize in 2001, and nominated twice for Grammy Awards (winning once in 2011), Sangaré has cemented herself as one of Africa’s legendary musicians.
She released her first album in 1990 on the Syllart label, aptly titled Mossoulou (“Women”.) The record took off, selling 250,000 copies, becoming the best-selling cassette tape in West Africa at the time. This caught the attention of Nick Gold of World Circuit, and her second release, Ko Sira, spent three months at number one in European music charts.
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Oumou Sangare’s music is explicitly, unabashedly feminist. Some highlights include Sigi Kuruni, warning a new bride about the bullying she will face from her new husband and her family, Worotan (“Ten Kola Nuts”), which suggests for the price of ten kola nuts (a ritual dowry from the bridegroom’s father to the wife’s father), a woman can be “virtually sold into slavery” (Durán, 1995), and other themes in her songs include rallying cries against forced marriage and polygamy, as seen in the song Dugu Kamelenba (“The Womanizer”).
Her activism extends outside of music too, being named Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Association in 2003, and she is also an active businesswoman, founding a hotel and even launching her own car, the “Oum Sang.” Oumou is still very much active, with her most recent track coming out in 2025, and actively works with artists from all over the world, most notably with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Childish Gambino in the song Mood 4 Eva, part of the companion album for 2019’s The Lion King. Oumou Sangaré is living proof of the dynamic, ground-breaking and rebellious nature of Wassoulou music, a democratisation of tradition that lets the songbirds fly.
Sources:
Durán, Lucy. Birds of Wasulu: Freedom of Expression and Expressions of Freedom in the Popular Music of Southern Mali, in ‘British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 4:1, pp. 101-134 (1995).
Eyre, Banning. In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.)
O’Brien, Lucy. She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul. (Continuum, 2002.)
