Dawda Jobarteh

Dawda Jobarteh is a Denmark-based Afro-rock musician from The Gambia.

Jobarteh takes his griot heritage very seriously and is the grandson of Alhaji Bai Konte and son of Amadou Bansang. He is at the epicentre of The Gambia’s musical aristocracy.

Dawda was not, at first, a kora player and even today his instrument is one acquired after he'd left the land of his birth, The Gambia, and settled in Denmark. Dawda learned his music sitting at the feet of his uncle Malamin, playing the calabash. And perhaps it is this training as a percussionist, only coming to the kora later and on his own terms, which makes his music so distinct.

Another factor could be the range of collaborators with whom Dawda has performed and recorded over the years. From the Salaam Band in The Gambia while still in his teens, through to featuring with jazz pioneer Pierre Dørge, and on to leading his own groups today, Dawda has absorbed a range of influences that cover a whole gamut of musical styles. Thus he is as comfortable with a traditional composition which dates back hundreds of years, as he is with hooking up his kora to an effects box and turning the volume to '11'.

Dawda’s home is now firmly in Denmark. Here he has married and set up house. Here he has swapped the wedding and circumcision ceremonies that his uncles Malamin Jobarteh and Dembo Konte performed in rural Gambia, for educational tours of Scandinavia with bassist Moussa Diallo, or free-jazz performances with drummer Stefan Pasborg. Here with his own group he has appeared at rock festivals such as Roskilde, and from here he has ventured around the world onto stages in East Africa and clubs in New Delhi, India.

Dawda Jobarteh's performances honour his past, are rooted in the present and yet always look to the future.