I found her seated on the concrete floor of an adobe-and-stucco guesthouse owned by Mali's culture ministry, adjacent to the municipal soccer grounds. With a 40-watt bulb providing the only ...

“Toumani was a guardian of our culture, but also a bold innovator ... who have preserved the stories and traditions of Mali’s Mandé empire, once the largest in West Africa, through their ...

culture, and traditions. Some, like Kouyaté, play a xylophone-like instrument called the balafon. Stein joined Kouyaté, who had relocated to America, in a journey back to Mali and Guinea.