Balla Kouyaté, Mike Block & Friends

Malian American artist Balla Kouyaté is part of a long unbroken family line of musicians, praise-singers, and oral historians who celebrate and keep vital the culture of the Malinké people of West Africa. Playing a balafon – the West African antecedent of the xylophone – Kouyaté makes his Celebrity Series debut and shares the stage with boundary-defying cellist Mike Block and other equally daring musical friends.

The six-piece band comes together to create a program of joyous, effervescent music that blends West African beats (courtesy of percussionists Kouyaté , Dembele, and Kone) and vocals with bluegrass, funk, and rock. Block and Kouyaté lead the band in a program that celebrates international sounds and cross-cultural collaboration.

Learn more about the ensemble and their performance on November 19th, which is part of the Celebrity Series of Boston's Neighborhood Arts Global Percussion Series: https://www.celebrityseries.org/productions/balla-kouyate-mike-block-and-friends-bamako-to-boston/