​Originally from Casamance, a region in southern Senegal, Lamine Cissokho was born into a family of griots, poets and storytellers, transmitters of ancestral stories. Lulled by Mandingo melodies during his childhood, he turned to blues, jazz, and even Malian world music as an adult. While revisiting traditional West African melodies with folk sounds at will, Lamine Cissokho nevertheless strives to perpetuate the identity of the griots. On stage, over the course of the 150 or so concerts he has given in some fifteen countries, he is (almost) always accompanied by his favorite instrument: the kora.