User:Spaceriqui/Project Music

Master drummer?[edit]

Les Percussions de Guinee - [18]

Moussa Traore is a master drummer from Mali.

very accomplished Malian "jembefola," which means "player of the jembe" in his language of Bambara (Bamanankan). Moussa has been playing the jembe for the past twenty-five years.

In 1984, after completing a twelve-year apprenticeship, he was deemed a master drummer by his teacher, Sega Cisse. Since that time Moussa has achieved great recognition throughout Mali as an accomplished musician in the theater, in traditional ceremonies as well as in the Malian pop music scene. he began playing jembe with his first theater troupe, Troupe Babemba. From there he went on to play with several Malian theater troops including: the Ballet National de Mali, Troupe District de Bamako, and Troupe Siwa. Until his recent move to the United States, Moussa was the director and lead drummer of Troupe Komi Djosse in Bamako, Mali for over four years. Moussa brought the troupe to national recognition through their music video entitled, "Ti Samba," in which Moussa is featured as lead drummer and vocalist.

Beginning at the age of seventeen, Moussa was selected every year to represent the region of Bamako in Le Biennal, the three-month long, national competition of artists from every region in Mali. At each competition, Moussa led his troupe to win the highest honors until the national competitions ended, with the overthrow of the Malian dictator in 1991. Since 1991, Moussa has played jembe on the albums of more Malian pop artists than any other jembefola in Mali. He has recorded with such artists as: Djeneba Seck, Molobaly Traore, Za Yousouf, Nanou Coulibaly, Sabou Dorunte and Soumaila Diallo. Until coming to the US, Moussa was the jembefola for Malian pop singer, Djeneba Seck, whom he toured with throught West Africa (and briefly in America) for over six years, in addition to his work with Troupe Komi Djosse.

In addition to his extensive performance and recording career, Moussa has established himself as an internationally respected teacher of traditional Mande music. During his three-month stay in the United States in 1994, Moussa taught jembe and was the lead jembefola for the West African Dance and Music Program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1998, Moussa was invited to France by La Nef des Musiques, a nonprofit organization endorsed by the French Minister of Culture that provides arts and education programming in public schools. He worked as an "artist in residence" in four schools teaching students ages 5-17 the traditional music of Mali. His teaching experience has also included working with several European apprentices who have studied jembe, dundun and drum-making with him in Bamako, Mali over the past ten years.