“Yira Ye” takes its title from a Bambara phrase that means roughly “that’s how it is”, and it is the first single from L’Ombre du Croco, the debut album  Bamako Express release through Trad Records on 30 October.

The Ghent quartet pairs two Belgian folk players, violinist Anouk Sanczuk and guitarist Florian De Schepper, with Malian balafonist and singer Joël Massa Diarra and Burkinabè percussionist Ousmane Dembélé on djembe and calabash. Their songs are sung in Bambara. Over the past year they have played concert stages and the balfolk nights of Flanders, where couples dance to live folk bands, and in 2026 they won Best Live Band at the Flanders Folk Awards.

At a balfolk night the violin carries the tune for the dancers, and in Mande music the balafon does much the same job; “Yira Ye” passes the melody between the two over Dembélé’s djembe. The track moves from quiet melodic passages into full dance rhythm, and De Schepper steps forward for a guitar solo, recorded with the rest of the song by Jeroen Geerinck at Studio Trad.

Stream and listen to “Yira Ye” HERE