the 2th edition of the Festival La Voix de la Kora took place in Bobo-Dioulasso on April 21 and 22, 2023 at the Bambous Idrissa Koné cultural center. This music festival dedicated to instrumentalists, saw the performance of several artists from Burkina Faso and elsewhere.
The lanterns went out on the 2th edition of the Festival La Voix de la Kora, stage of Bobo-Dioulasso, April 22, 2023. During this last evening, three instrumentalists thrilled the public with the power and melody of their string instruments.
They are Daouda Diarra dit David with his Group 4 Friends; the artist Kantala, also artistic director of the Festival La Voix de la Kora and of N’Gonifo Drissa who shines with N’Goni Cordes des donsso. He captured the attention of the public with his sounds coming from the mystical depths of the ancestral tradition of donsso.
The particularity of the Kantala kora is that it has 38 strings, “because I have a double neck, there are 22 strings on one side and 16 strings on the other. Instead of having several instruments, I put two instruments of different tones in the same shell”, he explains. This evening, he presented a show around improvisation, “the creations of contemporary music of traditional inspiration. Because in music, you have to open up,” says the artist.
The 4 Friends, whose lead is David, have been together in music since 2008. Ais, tonight two members of the Group are not there. This is the drummer Moïse Ouattara, who went to accompany an artist at Jazz in Lomé. And Ulrich Ouédraogo, the pianist working on a project. He had a mission in sight and couldn’t get really involved in the rehearsal. Never mind! They were validly replaced by Jean Jacques Lompo on the piano and Elisée Coulibaly, drummer.
Lead David is delighted with the participation of his drummer Moïse Ouattara at Jazz à Lomé. “Because it is Burkinabè expertise that is valued. And another part of the 4 Friends Group is elsewhere, ”he says.
As on the evening of April 22, on the evening of the 21 there were three guest instrumentalists. First Wes Nabil with the ruudga which is the African violin. Then, a young instrumentalist named D King who raps Kamalengoni. He’s a Kamalengoni rapper, that means he uses Kamalengoni, another variety of N’Goni. In the third performance, there was the singer Bananjos. He worked on a rhythm called Finger universe style which consists of releasing notes from several musical instruments with a guitar.
If the lanterns went out on the first stage of the 2th edition of the Festival La Voix de la Kora in Bobo-Dioulasso, a second stage is planned for next December in Ouagadougou.
Aly Konate
