Notes

‘Tassi.’ Despite announcing he’d put out his final album in 2018, Salif Keita—the “Golden Voice of Africa”—has just released a new one, So Kono. Recorded in a hotel room in Kyoto, Japan, its title translates as “In the room.” An acoustic album, so it may not be as high-energy as Keita’s music in the 1980s and ‘90s. But you can hear in it why he’s one of the musical greats of modern Mali—itself one of the richest and most prolific music scenes in Africa.

What’s so special about Mali?

—Brendan Hasenstab