Singing the Blues

From the streaming waters of the Niger River all the way to the Mississippi, one thing found its way across the Atlantic: The Blues, where jazz legends sang at the turn of the 20th century, changing the trajectory of music forever. 

Its humble strings in the Niger Delta echo a distinct melody, the strings of the kora played mostly by the Mande people in West Africa and passed down to each generation as a family duty. Twenty-one strings suspended over a calabash, played by virtuoso musicians steeped in an ancient tradition. The music of the ancestors is alive today among the jelis or griots. 

The ancient instrument of the jeli tradition is also the ancestor of the banjo. Strings suspended over a drum. And like the river, it provides a stream of notes of haunting beauty. Made for storytelling using fingertips to create a score from the lessons of forefathers, stories that are not written but kept across generations through the voice and beat. 

The roots and distant melancholy of these traditions spread themselves in the New World, finding new meaning and identity while still keeping the art intact. The roots of blues music have influenced gospel, jazz, soul, R&B, rock and roll, and rock music. 

This is the story of the blues, ever flowing and ever-changing from generation to generation, while the storytelling remains in the melodies.