Mamadou Diabate

Mamadou Diabaté
Cover from Mamadou Diabate's album, "Heritage"
Background information
Birth name	Mamadou Diabaté
Born	1975
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Kora
Years active	1990s–present
Website	www.mamadoukora.com

Mamadou Diabaté (born 1975) is a kora player. He began playing quite early in his life, became known as a musician in the area of Mali in which he lived, and has since moved to the United States, recording five albums

Diabaté was born in Kita, Mali, a town relatively near to Mali's capital of Bamako, known for its artistic and cultural prominence within the Manding community of West Africa. He was born into a family of griots, with his father, Djelimory n'fa Diabaté, also a kora musician and a member of the Instrumental Ensemble of Mali. He began playing the kora, a 21-string harp at a very young age, performing at various public events in his country and was becoming somewhat of a regional celebrity by that time as well.

In 1996, he went on to travel with a group of the Instrumental Ensemble of Mali, and eventually settled in the United States. Since his move to the US, Diabaté has performed with several musicians from the country, including jazz players Randy Weston, Guy Davis, and Donald Byrd, as well as with a griot ensemble composed of musicians from Mali and the United States.

His 2000 debut album Tunga mixed West African music with blues and jazz influences. A review in CMJ New Music Report commented on Diabate's "faster, nimbler style of kora playing". The album featured bassists Cheick Barry and Ira Coleman.

In 2005, Diabaté was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Traditional World Music Album category for Behmanka, but lost to the collaboration between his cousin Toumani Diabate and Ali Farka Toure. The album was described as a "dazzling duet for one" by The Washington Post, while Philip Van Vleck, reviewing it for Billboard, described it as "a feat of remarkable virtuosity".