The kora, a twenty-one stringed “double-bridge-harp-lute”, is a West African instrument so iconic it’s even referenced in the opening line of the Senegalese national anthem. The most globally famous use of this instrument is almost certainly in the 1987 song “Yè Kè Yè Kè” by Guinean artist Mory Kanté, which was the first ever single on the entire continent of Africa to sell over a million copies.

Sona Jobarteh on the other hand is a Gambian-English musician, a multi-instrumentalist, and she is known for being the first woman to play the kora professionally. Playing the kora was a skill traditionally passed down from father to son in specific families of jali (also known by the French name griot) — incidentally, jali, those are the selfsame families of oral historians and bards believed to be the progenitors of rap music.