KÉLÉTIGUI DIABATÉ

Kélétigui Diabaté is one of the undisputed masters of the Balafon. He was one of the founders of one of Mali's earliest bands in the 1960s “Formation A”, and he later went on to play with the Ambassadors and work with the Malian vocalist Salif Ketia, as well as become a member of Toumani Diabaté's ‘Symmetric Orchestra'.

Kélétigui's unique style was influenced by a chance meeting with Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz musicians. He developed a wider range of flexibility on the Balafon, which has a fixed set of tones tuned to a single scale, by using two Balafons simultaneously which are offset by a semitone.

His son, having learned the Balafon from his father, is now also a rising musician in Mali.