On “Londi”, a guitar follows a kora so closely you could take the two for one instrument. The kora is Sura Susso‘s, a Gambian raised in a griot family and long settled in London; the guitar is Habib Koité‘s, the Malian who tunes to a pentatonic scale and works the open strings until it sings in the kora’s register.

Londi is the Mandinka word for knowledge, and Susso sings it in Mandinka and Wolof as a tribute to the djeli, the West African storytellers and historians who carry a people’s memory in performance rather than on the page. Both musicians were born to it, Koité into a noble line of Khassonké griots, Susso into a Gambian kora dynasty.

The single opens Londi, a record a decade in the making. Susso and Koité met in 2016, when promoter and label African Night Fever, showcasing African music in the Brighton Area, brought Koité to Britain and put Susso on as support, and the nightly improvising that followed grew first into a friendship and then into an album. Half of it was cut in Bamako with Koité, the rest in Banjul with Susso’s band. It arrives on 9 October as African Night Fever’s debut release, with Gambian kora player Jaliba Kuyateh guesting on another track, “Yamaro”.

From the studio it moves to the stage: the Manding Melody tour carries the project across nine UK dates between 22 October and 1 November, Susso leading a cross-generational band from Senegal, Mali and The Gambia, built around kora, balafon, percussion and bass. “Londi” came out as a single on 14 August.

Stream “Londi” HERE