![]() The movie soundtrack has an open sky, long journey ambiance. The selections are not songs in the western sense, instead they are gentle grooves with beguiling melodies featuring string-voiced vamps enriched by the floating beauty of Jobarteh sotto-voiced cooing. These tracks have a floating, meditative atmosphere-incense, candles, quiet contemplation. The next six songs on the Mixtape are from Motherland, the movie soundtrack that Jobarteh composed. The first six tracks on the Mixtape are from Afro-Acoustic Soul and at least half of them would not be out of place in the format for contemporary urban radio. On Afro-Acoustic Soul, her debut album, the songs are divided mainly between songs of sweet/bitter love and conscious statements exhorting self-awareness and social struggle. Her singing voice is both soft and strong, lilting and definite. The kora is her major instrument it sounds somewhat like a harp but more percussive. While it would be easy to go gaga over her accomplishments thus far in her young career, my interest in her music is in how she negotiates the wide divide between her European education and her more traditional African aesthetic. She also sings and composes including scoring for movies. In addition to the kora, she is a proficient guitarist. She went on to study composition at the Purcell School of Music. She attended the Royal College of Music, studying cello, piano and harpsichord. When she was four she performed at the Jazz Café in London. Sona formally studied music in both English universities and Gambian villages. But she is much, much more than a novelty act. Sona has spent significant time in both England and Gambia, and is considered the first major female kora player. ![]() She is the cousin of celebrated kora master Toumani Diabate and is also the sister of Tunde Jegede who directs the African Classical Music Ensemble, with whom Sona tours. ![]() In Gambia he was acclaimed as a major griot and kora player. She is the granddaughter of Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, who migrated from Mali to Gambia. ![]() Sona Jobarteh is a quintessential example of this development. Although they may specialize in a particular musical genre, their work reflects diverse influences even as it champions an African essence. Most of them are at least bilingual, and many of them are tri- and multi-lingual. A number of them are of mixed racial heritage but all of them strongly identified with their African heritages (both directly from the motherland continent of Africa and via the various diaspora homelands, particularly Brazil and the Caribbean. “Afropean” is a new term for European born/African heritage people. ![]()
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