On Tuesday 2 September, the steady, meandering waters of the River Niger will meet the restless tides of the Thames, as Samba Touré brings his music to London for the first time. Stepping onto The Jazz Cafe stage with the spirit of northern Mali at his back, his guitar lines move like currents: circling, surging, carrying songs of labour, resilience and love that stretch from Bamako’s markets to the desert’s horizon. Once mentored by Ali Farka Touré, now a master in his own right, Samba arrives not as a custodian of the past but as a voice of the present: rooted, restless, and alive.
His latest album, Baarakelaw (“The Workers”), released earlier this year on Glitterbeat, turns its gaze to the city’s small trades: water sellers, tailors, street labourers. Those whose work often goes unseen yet holds communities together. Recorded during power cuts in Mali’s capital and later completed in France, the album balances raw urgency with subtle production touches. It also holds a deeply personal note: the closing track, “Yerkomahine”, remembers Touré’s late wife.
Touré’s sound is often folded into the phrase “desert blues,” yet his music runs deeper than a label. His guitar work rises from Songhai tradition: modal cycles that repeat with a hypnotic pull, anchored by droning bass strings while treble phrases coil and return like echoes across the river. At times the phrasing edges close to Mississippi through kinship, as if the Sahara and the Delta were always listening to one another. Over these patterns, his voice enters plainly, almost conversational, giving weight to stories of labour, family and endurance. Where Ali Farka opened the channel between Songhai music and the blues, Samba steers it forward with a stripped-down directness, less ornamental, more insistent.
That strength becomes unmistakable on stage. For over three decades, Touré has been both guardian and innovator, from his early years in Ali Farka’s band to leading his own groups in Bamako, and now as one of Mali’s central songwriters. The Jazz Cafe will carry that sound without filters: guitar lines turning like wheels, rhythms building force through persistence, words cutting through with clarity.
Samba Touré UK Tour 2025
The London date marks the second stop-over of Samba Touré’s UK tour, after kicking off at Smugglers Festival in Deal. From there, the journey moves through Manchester, Norwich, Bristol, Swansea and Cornwall. Yet London carries a particular weight: the city’s first opportunity to hear one of Mali’s most vital voices in a space intimate enough for every note to strike with full force.
Thursday 28 August: Deal @ Smugglers Festival
Tuesday 2 September: London @ Jazz Cafe
Wednesday 3 September: Manchester @ Band on the Wall
Thursday 4 September: Norwich @ Norwich Arts Centre
Friday 5 September: Bristol @ The Jam Jar
Saturday 6 September: Swansea @ The Welfare
Sunday 7 September: Falmouth @ The Cornish Bank
Ticket for the London gig at the Jazz Cafe are available HERE