Burkina Faso’s Mamadou Diabaté goes on world tour

The award-winning musician and his band will play in Austria, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Canada and the US.

“There will be six members onstage playing balafon, drums percussion, djembe, guitar and bass. That’s the current line-up but we can add flute and more percussion,” Mamadou Diabaté told Music In Africa.

Diabaté has already played in Germany and Holland as part of the tour and says feeback has been good so far.

“People always tell us that this is the best concert they have seen," he said. "They buy many CDs from us since they can’t find them in the shops We always sign new contracts and some concert organisers immediately invite us to perform at their events. To convince them by email is often hard as they don´t understand the quality we offer at first.”

But Diabaté says he has challenges marketing his music. “It's hard to promote the kind of music I play. What we do is very special and unique and therefore we do not fit into a mainstream market. Even the world music market is limited.

“It makes it difficult to become more popular and play club shows. My shows fit into concert halls, philharmonic houses and at big festivals, which are a great settings for the kind of energy we deliver.”

The singer said he was looking at creative ways to promote his music.

“We are doing balafon workshops in schools. It's another good way to present the instrument and the music. I have worked with many European artists and I even have duo projects and CDs with them, such as the famous Austrian jazz musician, Wolfgang Puschnig. At the moment we are talking to Norwegian musician Sverre Indris Jonas."

For more information, visit the Mamadou Diabaté official website.