The late Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toure took his music on the road, travelling from his beloved farm in Niafunke, in northwestern Mali, to thrill audiences around the globe, until his untimely death in 2006.
I had the good fortune to see Ali perform solo and with a trio on a number of occasions in Japan during the early 1990s, and to interview him several times. Once, during an interview in a hotel coffee shop in suburban Tokyo, he launched into a song on the njerkle (single-stringed guitar) to show me the rhythm and melody of just one kind of music he played (although he played music from all parts of Mali, his repertoire was mainly based on northern Malian traditions). He told me that he sang in 11 different languages.
