Sona Jobarteh - West African Musician Critic/ Appreciation

Definitely one of the upcoming West African Musicians within the Griot (

What I like about her style is the ability to "modernize" or perhaps better said as "Europeanize" the music, yet maintain the authenticity, it is a rare feat and very often the artist ends up appreciated by the "White audience" but ignored at home. This is what happened to Toure Kunda (

Her style was to me as a certain African critic was already tasteful and modernized, but avoided being folkloric (or a performance show ... ) - I am afraid to say. Sona Jobarteh - GAMBIA (Official Video)

She probably had to go farther in order to come before this small English speaking audience. Being French speaking makes it extremely difficult for West African Artists to be successful for the US consumers (generally speaking), regardless of the International acclaim they might otherwise have. This is not the case at all for their English speaking counterpart, such as the Nigerians, who as of late have become influential with the hip hop domain, but so have the Koreans.

Sona, appears to have a great future as she continues to "evolve", additionally she also has the advantage of her Education. She is obviously at least trilingual (a polyglot) in Bambara (the most common West African language, of which she speaks dialect that I can still understand), French, English and probably at least one other African Dialect.

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