Celebrating Toumani Diabaté

Toumani Diabaté, the most celebrated kora player of his time, passed away in July, 2024, just days before his 59thbirthday. Afropop Worldwide was blessed to call Toumani a friend for over 30 years and to interview him some 15 times, often at his home in Bamako, Mali. In this episode we celebrate a life of massive virtuosity, creativity and innovation. Toumani overcame daunting obstacles and extended the global reach of this venerable West African harp as no one else has ever done. We hear the voice and music of Toumani at many points in his storied career, along with commentary from his longtime producer and friend, Lucy Durán. Produced by Banning Eyre. APWW

You can listen to Celebrating Toumani Diabaté online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Celebrating Toumani Diabaté is an episode from Afropop Worldwide by Afropop Worldwide.

This episode is 00:59:04 long.

This episode was published on Apr 30, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Afropop Worldwide when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.