Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the The Gambia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A Mandinka griot descended directly from the man credited with inventing the kora four hundred years ago, and the musician who carried it into collaborations with Herbie Hancock and Philip Glass.
Foday Musa Suso was born in Sare Hamady in The Gambia into a jali family that traces itself to Jali Mady Wuleng, the musician credited with inventing the kora in the seventeenth century. He was taught in the traditional way, from childhood, by his father.
He went to Ghana to teach, and in 1977 to the United States, where he founded the Mandingo Griot Society — one of the first groups to put West African griot music together with American jazz and funk rather than presenting it as folklore.
What followed was a long run of collaborations that moved the kora into places it had never been: with Herbie Hancock, including the album Village Life, with Bill Laswell, with Ginger Baker, with Pharoah Sanders, and with Philip Glass, for whom he wrote and performed and with whom he recorded The Screens. He scored films and the 1996 Olympic ceremonies, and he composed the piece that Kronos Quartet took into the standard repertoire.
He remained a jali — a keeper of lineage and history — while making the kora an instrument that composers outside Africa wrote for. He died in 2025.
He went to Ghana to teach, and in 1977 to the United States, where he founded the Mandingo Griot Society — one of the first groups to put West African griot music together with American jazz and funk rather than presenting it as folklore.
What followed was a long run of collaborations that moved the kora into places it had never been: with Herbie Hancock, including the album Village Life, with Bill Laswell, with Ginger Baker, with Pharoah Sanders, and with Philip Glass, for whom he wrote and performed and with whom he recorded The Screens. He scored films and the 1996 Olympic ceremonies, and he composed the piece that Kronos Quartet took into the standard repertoire.
He remained a jali — a keeper of lineage and history — while making the kora an instrument that composers outside Africa wrote for. He died in 2025.
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