Festi'Konkoba: a passage to Africa

(N'Faly Kouyaté)

Festi’Konkoba is inviting you to experience Africa for two days with artists from various West African countries, with a carnival, an artisanal market, concerts, workshops, and cinema. Konkoba means the “rhythm of the good workers”, and pays tribute to the farmers of the Malinke and Yalunka people of Guinea. It refers to the music that is played while people work in the fields bringing in the harvest and later during the harvest festival. At Festi’Konkoba, N’Faly Kouyaté wants not only to celebrate the great farmers of his homeland, but also to cast the spotlight on West African music and culture in general, and initiate exchange between Africa and the West. Kouyaté, who is from Conakry, Guinea, is Brussels’s best-known griot, the singers/musicians/storytellers of the people of West Africa. He has lived in Anderlecht for many years, where he is active with his NAMUN Group, which teaches African dance and percussion, and organises activities at Zinnema and other venues. For Festi’Konkoba, Kouyaté is bringing out the big guns: a veritable two-day festival with a star from Mali, griot and kora player Toumani Diabaté, the dance and percussion grooves of Les Tambours du Burundi, the Tunisian singer Ghalia Benali, and the young Guinean rap of Instinct Killers. Kouyaté himself will bring his band Dunyakan. There will also be a master class for kora players led by Toumani Diabaté, and Wamali Percussions will teach workshops of traditional African dance, percussion, and song.

Festi’Konkoba 14 > 16/6, €25/28/30 (1 day), €50/55/60 (2 days), Curo Hall, rue Ropsy Chaudronstraat 7, Anderlecht, 02-555.06.24, www.festikonkoba.com