Sona Jobarteh, who was born in London, is a member of one of the five principal kora-playing (griot) families from West Africa, and the first female member of such a family to rise to prominence on this instrument. The playing of this 21-stringed harp-like instrument was exclusively passed down from father to son. The instrument is an important element of the Mandingo peoples in West Africa and their playing is reserved only to certain families called griot. She has studied the kora since the age of three, at first taught by her brother Tunde Jegede, who is 11 years older, and with whom she travelled several times a year to the Gambia as a child.
She gave her first performance at London’s Jazz Cafe at the age of four, and performed at festivals several times in her early childhood. When still a music student she worked on several orchestral projects, including the “River of Sound” with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, featuring Evelyn Glennie, and other collaborative works, including performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Milton Keynes City Orchestra and the Viva Chamber Orchestra. In 2002 she performed in Vienna with the renowned jazz vocalist Cleveland Watkiss, also forming a part of his support act for Cassandra Wilson at the Barbican in London. She also featured on Damon Albarn’s Mali Music Project, which was later performed for Jools Holland.
She has collaborated on stage with Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabaté, Kasse Made Diabaté and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Jobarteh is a regular member of her brother Tunde Jegede’s African Classical Music Ensemble, which has toured England, Ireland, Africa and parts of the Caribbean. She has contributed to his albums Malian Royal Court Music and Lamentations, for which she composed two pieces, one of which also featured on the album Trance Planet Vol. 5 (released on Triloka records, Virgin in the US). She also works with the distinguished spoken-word artist HKB FiNN as an instrumentalist, co-writer, singer and producer. For her solo work, such as her performance at the 2014 Festival Internacional Cervantino, in Mexico, she has a band with members Kari Bannermann on electric guitar, Kyazi Lugangira on acoustic guitar, Mamadou Sarr on African percussions (as calabash or djembe), Alexander Boateng on drums and Andi McLean on the bass.
Her debut album was Afro-Acoustic Soul, containing songs about bittersweet love and social themes. The influences on this album are mixed with some that could be played on more conventional European radio formats. Her second was Fasiya (2011). She makes a guest appearance on the 2021 album Djourou by Ballake Sissoko. Jobarteh also teaches the kora in London. She worked with her father, Sanjally Jobarteh, in setting up a formal music school in the Gambia, named after her famous grandfather.
Sona Jobarteh made her debut as a film composer in 2009 when she was commissioned to create the soundtrack to a documentary film on Africa entitled Motherland. The score was an innovative exploration into the cinematic representation of a classical African sound world. While much of Jobarteh’s score drew primarily on the West African griot tradition, she also had to reinvent it to accommodate for the demands of the visual realm. To create this film score Sona explored instruments in different ways to that of their traditional setting. She has used the kora as a bass instrument as well as tuning it to an “Arabic” scale. She has used the guitar to emulate the sound of an African lute, as well as being influenced by the West African griot style of playing.
