Boubacar Samake

**Deep donso-groove, ritual + blues from Mali**

Boubacar Samake, son of the late Malian music legend Sibiri Samake, carries forward the deep spiritual tradition of Mali’s donso (hunter) music — a lineage of ritual melodies and rhythms played for courage, healing, and connection to the natural world.

A virtuoso of the ngoni, the plucked lute at the heart of donso music, Boubacar is also one half of electro-afro innovators Siraba. He performs in this new line-up with Louis Campbell (electric guitar, from alt-folk duo Spafford Campbell), Ben Nicholls (bass) and master percussionist Seydou Kienou from Burkina Faso, whose djembe, calabash and karagnan bring a visceral, ancient pulse. Together they reframe this ancestral sound in a hypnotic, blues-tinged dialogue that bridges West African tradition and modern experimentation.

London-based selector, record collector and musical storyteller Afrodesi opens the evening with a richly curated DJ set journeying through African rhythms, highlife, Afrobeat, jazz and diasporic dancefloor sounds, drawn from years spent digging deep into musical traditions from across the continent and beyond.