Sona Jobarteh

She has collaborated on stage with Oumou Sangaré, Toumani Diabaté, Kasse Made Diabaté and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Jobarteh is a regular member of her brother Tunde Jegede's African Classical Music Ensemble, which has toured England, Ireland, Africa and parts of the Caribbean. She has contributed to his albums Malian Royal Court Music and Lamentations, for which she composed two pieces, one of which also featured on the album Trance Planet Vol. 5 (released on Triloka records, Virgin in the US). She also works with the distinguished spoken-word artist HKB FiNN as an instrumentalist, co-writer, singer and producer. For her solo work, such as her performance at the 2014 Festival Internacional Cervantino, in Mexico, she has a band with members Kari Bannermann on electric guitar, Kyazi Lugangira on acoustic guitar, Mamadou Sarr on African percussion, Alexander Boateng on drums and Andi McLean on the bass.

Her debut album was Afro-Acoustic Soul, containing songs about bittersweet love and social themes. The influences on this album are mixed with some that could be played on more conventional European radio formats. Her second was Fasiya (2011).

Sona Jobarteh made her debut as a film composer in 2009 when she was commissioned to create the soundtrack to a documentary film on Africa entitled Motherland.

In 2002 she performed in Vienna with the renowned jazz vocalist Cleveland Watkiss, also forming a part of his support act for Cassandra Wilson at the Barbican in London. She also featured on Damon Albarn's Mali Music Project which was later performed for Jools Holland.

Sona Jobarteh is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and composer from the Gambia and the UK. She was born in 1983 into one of the five principal Kora-playing Griot families from West Africa – she is the first female professional kora player to come from a Griot family. She is the granddaughter of the Master Griot of his generation, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, cousin of the well-known, celebrated Kora player Toumani Diabate as well as the sister of the renowned Diaspora Kora player Tunde Jegede.

She is the granddaughter of the Master Griot, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh (b.1915), who migrated from Mali to the Gambia. Her cousin is the well-known, celebrated Kora player Toumani Diabaté. Her mother is English (Galina Chester?). She has a son, Sidiki Jobarteh-Codjoe, born in 2010.