'Djeli' by master kora player Ba Cissoko is first and foremost an ode to the djeli or griots, but this album also highlights Cissoko's twenty-year collaboration with Nuits Métis, founded in Marseille in 1994, synonymous with encounters between different cultures in the Bouches du Rhône for more than 20 years, and culminating in the annual Nuits Métis Festival in June. On 'Djeli' Ba not only alternates between Malinke, Wolof and Fulbe, but here and there also exchanges his kora for the ngoni or the guitar. After the title track 'Djelia', we get the kora-reggae of 'N'fasso' ("don't forget your roots"), in which French reggae singer Yellam also makes an appearance. A lot more intimate is 'Djougouya' centered on Ba's voice and acoustic guitar. Only for 'C'est Pas Facile', a song about migration issues and immediately one of the highlights in the track list, Cissoko also switches to French for a few verses. The acoustic 'Baye Fall', in which kora and tama (talking drum) play a leading role, is an ode to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall movement. In the song Ba refers to Touba, the sacred city of the Mourides in the west of Senegal, but also the name of a town in the northwest of Guinea not far from Ba's birthplace Koundara. 'Aiba', a track in Fula, is a real party starter with hints of Congolese soukous, but if you want to hear the kora in its purest form you can opt for the instrumental closing track 'Fakoly' instead. Similar, but with Ba on ngoni is 'N'goni Solo', and in 'Djeguema', a declaration of his love for his children, even some Latin American influences are thrown in. Another extremely varied album by this Guinean kora virtuoso!