Kassé Mady Diabaté has been recognised for decades as one of West Africa’s finest singers – the descendent of a distinguished griot family and his name, along with other griot legends such at Toumani Diabate and Bassekou Kouyate, is musical royalty in Mali.
In 1970 he became lead singer of the Orchestre Régional Super Mandé de Kangaba. Kassé Mady’s remarkable singing won the group the national Biennale music competition in the Malian capital Bamako.
It was at the Biennale that Kassé Mady caught the attention of Las Maravillas de Mali, a group of musicians who had studied music in Cuba and returned to Mali to perform their interpretations of Cuban classics. They invited Kassé Mady to join them as lead singer. With their young vocalist at the helm, the Maravillas, later known as Badema National, achieved huge success throughout West Africa, with songs sung in a Cuban style, but with a new Manding touch.
In 1988 Kassé Mady left Mali and the Badema National behind and moved to Paris, where he recorded his first solo album for the Senegalese record producer Ibrahima Sylla. He spent the next ten years in Paris, recording Fode, then Kéla Tradition, an acoustic album of Kéla jeli songs.
Moving back to Mali in the late 1990s, several collaborations followed, many of which have become landmark recordings: Songhai 2, the album he made with the flamenco group Ketama and Toumani Diabaté, and Koulandjan, on which he collaborated with Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabaté.
The new album Kiriké (meaning ‘horse’s saddle’ – an important symbol in griot culture) was released on No Format! Records – an album that celebrates his position as one of Mali’s greatest voices and one that will push him into the limelight.
Produced by French cellist Vincent Ségal, this album is the third in a series born out of the friendship between Segal and kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko. Long-time admirers of Kassé Mady, Ségal and Sissoko set out to create an album that gave space to his extraordinary voice.
Kassé Mady sings in Bambara, transcribing all the nuances of the human soul into song and delivering the powerful messages of the Manding Empire that have travelled through the centuries. He is accompanied by Ballaké Sissoko on kora, Lansiné Kouyaté on balafon and Makan Tounkara on ngoni. This trio of musicians represents three major elements in Manding music: the kora music of the Casamance region, the balafon of the central zone and the more bitter-sounding ngoni of the northern deserts of Mali – all drawn together by the soft and hypnotic baritone voice of Kassé Mady.