Habib Koité was born in Thiès, in Senegal. But his mother returned to live in Keyes, in western Mali, when he was just one year old, and it was there that he grew up surrounded by an extended family of Khassonké 'griots.' It soon became apparent that young Habib had inherited a certain musical talent from his parents. His mother was a singer who performed regularly at local weddings and his father would often pick up the guitar of an evening. Then there was his grandfather, a talented n'goni-player. After his father's death, the young boy found a new musical mentor in his elder brother, who taught him the basics of guitar playing on an old six-string instrument that was lying around the house.

After secondary school Habib was all set to go on and study to become an engineer. However, one of his uncles had spotted his musical talent and he shrewdly stepped in and redirected his nephew’s ambitions. Following his uncle's advice, Habib went off to Bamako instead to study at the National Institute for the Arts. "I soon came to realise I was in my element," Habib later admitted. This proved to be an important turning-point in the young teenager's life for it was a time when "young people regularly got together, drinking tea at local hang-outs called “le "grain". There was always a cassette recorder playing in the background. We used to listen to lots of American and French stuff at the time... Local radio played Malian sounds, but we were looking for something different!" Habib's teacher at Bamako's National Institute for the Arts was Kalilou Traoré. (One of his former pupils had already gone on to pursue an illustrious career after going off to train in Cuba in 1964 from whence he returned to form the famous group Las Maravillas de Mali).

After four years at the National Institute for the Arts, during which time he was put in charge of the school band, Habib Koité graduated from the institute top of his year. He remained on at the school after his studies, however, taking up a position as a guitar teacher (a job he continued up until 1998 with the same commitment and passion). One of the things he is most proud of from his teaching years was the fact that he managed to change the school rules so that pupils could take their guitars home at night to practise. Meanwhile, Habib launched his own professional music career, playing with a group called Les Crocos. He also formed a guitar duo with Oumar Koïta and played regularly in a jazz quartet with French civil servants based in Bamako, as well as musicians from Ivory Coast.

Habib Koité's career began to take off in earnest in 1988 when he got together with a bunch of childhood friends and formed the group Bamada (a nickname given to people from Bamako meaning 'in the crocodile's mouth'). "We used to get together and rehearse in band members' bedrooms," Habib remembers, "then we moved on to bars and dancehalls like the bistro L'Ecuelle." While continuing to teach guitar classes at Bamako's National Institute for the Arts, Habib Koité was already honing his professional guitar skills playing with well-known Malian musicians such as the balafon-player Kélétigui Diabaté and rising young kora star Toumani Diabaté (who invited him into the studio to play on his album "Shake The World" in 1991).

In 1991, thanks to the encouragement and support of a French friend, Habib Koité travelled to France to appear at the Voxpole festival in Perpignan. His performance went down such a storm that he ended up walking off with the festival's top award, a cash prize which enabled him to finance the recording of two songs: "Cigarette A Bana" (an enormous hit throughout West Africa) and "Nanalé" ("The Swallow", a song about women of the night "out on the prowl"). Two years later, Habib Koité went on to triumph again, winning RFI's "Découverte" (Discovery) award.

In 1994, thanks to the grant he had won as part of the "Découverte" award, Habib Koité and his group, Bamada, went off to follow a music training programme in Paris. They also organised their first ever tour outside Africa, appearing at the Francofolies music festival in La Rochelle (France), the Francofolies music festival in Spa (Belgium) and the "Festival des Nuits d'Afrique" in Montreal. The following year, Habib Koité and Bamada went off to Abidjan to perform at the second edition of Masa (the Market for African Performing Arts). Habib presented several songs from his debut album "Muso Ko", which he had just put the finishing touches to in a studio in Brussels. The album, produced by the Belgian artistic agency Contre-Jour, won over many of the talent scouts who had come to the Performing Arts Market in search of rising new talents to promote in the West. Following their performance at Masa, Habib Koité and his group were invited to perform at a number of leading European music festivals such as the Paléo festival in Nyons, the Montreux Jazz Festival and "Couleur Café" in Belgium.

In 1998, Habib Koité went on to release a second album in Europe entitled "Ma Ya." Following this release, he definitively gave up his teaching post at Bamako's National Institute for the Arts to devote all his time and energy to developing his career. In 1999 and 2000, Habib Koité set his sights on America, performing on the concert circuit. Live dates included a tour with the free jazz Art Ensemble of Chicago. By this stage of his career, Habib Koité had begun to build up a significant fanbase across the Atlantic. And his status reached new heights when Bonnie Raitt joined him on stage in concert in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In May 2001, Habib went on to release his third album, "Baro." This included a new version of his cult single "Cigarette A Bana" (reworked Latino-style with lyrics in Spanish). This helped him establish himself on the world music scene as the inventor of an authentic fusion style drawing on Malian music tradition. Koité dubbed his new sound "danssa-doso", as it was a mix of "danssa" (a popular rhythm from his native region of Keyes) and "doso" (traditional hunting music).

In August and September of that year, Habib Koité continued his packed schedule, performing some thirty concerts in the U.S. His debut album, "Muso Ko", was reissued on the World Village label to coincide with the tour. Keeping up the same hectic pace, Koité and his group flitted on and off stage with remarkable energy. Between 1995 and 2002, they gave no less than 560 performances in nearly thirty different countries. And their winter tour of 2002/2003 proved to be equally heavy, including 75 dates (37 of them in the U.S.) between January and March 2003. Meanwhile, Habib Koité triumphed at the Kora Awards in November 2002, carrying off the award for Best Artist from West Africa.

At the beginning of 2004, Koité was invited to perform at the "Festival in the Desert", a world music festival organised in the Sahara, north of Timbuktu. Koité gave an amazing performance, mesmerising desert festival-goers with his sound. In March 2004, Koité made a comeback on the recording front with the release of "Fôly !", a double live album recorded on the road between March 2001 and July 2002 at various concerts in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The Malian singer continued to be in great demand in North America and, in 2005, Habib Koité kicked off a new tour there, which included 35 dates in the U.S. and Canada. The tour finished in March and the following month, Koité wended his way to the "Festival of Nomad Music" in Nouakchott, Mauritania. Here, he performed with Désert Blues, a temporary group he had formed the previous year with two other Malian artists: Afel Bocoum and Tartit.

After playing concerts across Malawi, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and Mexico, Habib Koité and his musicians returned to Europe for a series of dates in the summer. Then they flew off to Japan and continued their globe-trotting adventures, finishing up in South Africa at the end of the year.

Tours and collaborations

Habib Koité was invited to perform at the "Festival au désert" in Essakane once again in January 2006. Then he hit the road again in March, performing a series of dates across Ghana, Chad, Russia and Austria. Later that year, on 22 September, Koité embarked upon the "Acoustic Africa" tour with the Ivorian singer Dobet Gnahoré and the South African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela. All three artists performed on stage together, each taking turns at the microphone to play their own material.

After fifteen performances in Europe, the trio took their show to the U.S. where they performed some thirty dates across the country before returning to Europe in May 2007 for seven supplementary performances (including a set at the "Musiques Métisses" festival in Angoulême). Meanwhile, Koité the indefatigable globetrotter managed to fit in solo shows with his own group in Australia, Gabon and Belgium.

In June 2007, Habib Koité performed in concert in Paris with Afel Bocoum and the female singers from Tartit. After participating in a documentary about the "Desert Blues", all 21 musicians collaborated on a multi-media project created by director Michel Jaffrenou (Habib Koité acting as musical director on the project). The show, which was performed on four consecutive nights at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, proved to be a big hit with the public.

Three months later, just as he was about to kick off yet another tour, the Malian singer-and-guitarist brought out a new album entitled "Afriki." The album had been eagerly awaited by fans, being the first time Koité had returned to the studio in six years. The eleven new songs on "Afriki" were recorded between Mali, Belgium and the United States, studio bookings fitted around Koité’s busy schedule. The Malian star admitted most of his new material had been composed on the road in hotel rooms as he moved around the world. The album featured Koité’s faithful backing band Bamada, the Ivorian singer Dobet Gnahoré and the American saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis (who also worked on the arrangements for the brass section).

Habib Koité continued his extensive European tour throughout the autumn of 2007. The tour included two performances at L'Européen, in Paris, on 7 & 8 October.

September 2007