Gambian musician Sona Jobarteh is taking her craft, playing the Kora, to the world. The West African string instrument is usually restricted to male players but Jobarteh is defying the norms. She's currently on tour in Europe and DW went to see her in Berlin.
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00:00West Africa tunes on stage in Berlin, driven by the kora, an instrument with a long history,
00:17and Sona Jobate has made it her own.
00:25We are representing as an individual something far greater than any one of us.
00:30This is a tradition that is centuries old.
00:32So we are just right now the current people who are pursuing this and who are advocating for it,
00:38but they have been many, many generations before us.
00:46She was born in a family of musicians from the Gambia.
00:51The kora is handed usually down from a father to son.
00:56But Sona's father and a brother taught her the art.
01:00And what she's built goes beyond just music.
01:06Music for me represents the culture.
01:09And I wanted to bring about a feeling of mutual respect between cultures.
01:13And so when we speak about representing your culture and yet conforming to a language that doesn't belong to your culture and that's being seen as normal,
01:20I wanted to push back against that and say that in fact for us really to be able to experience each other, to also cultivate a sense of mutual respect, it should work both ways.
01:30So audiences from around the world singing in African languages should not seem so strange.
01:35During this stop on her European tour, Sona is performing in one of Berlin's classical music venues.
01:44Right here in one of Berlin's most prestigious concert hall, Philharmoni, Sona Jobart is performing her music to about a thousand two hundred audience tonight.
02:01Once a dream, she's taking African music and culture beyond the continent.
02:06In 2015, the same year I wrote this song, it was the very year I opened my own academy.
02:15And here in the Gambia, she aims to host up to three hundred students, promoting a system of learning that celebrates local heritage.
02:23An initiative that I am very much focused on and dedicated to in my life, which is to achieve reformation of our curriculums in Africa, and I'm starting in the Gambia, but this is a system that I would like to see implemented in other countries, not just the Gambia.
02:47And that for me is an essential part of what I do. It's a critical part of social development and social change and progress for African nations to really understand the legacy of oppression that is still contained within our education systems.
03:07And her audience here in Germany is captivated.
03:10Many people will never travel to Africa. And so for me, this music has this incredible power to be able to transport people without having to physically leave the location they're in, to feel an understanding, empathy, relationship and connection to a culture very different to their own.
03:34And so for me, this is the beautiful magical part of music that we as artists, I think, have a very unique role to play within that space.
03:45From Gambia to the world, Sona Jobati hopes she can spark change in how people listen to music.