Home› Africa›West Africa›Burkina Faso
Music of Burkina Faso
Home of the griot/jeli tradition, the kora and balafon, Afrobeat, Highlife, Mbalax and the desert blues of the Sahel.
Sung and searched in French. The YouTube button above can run your search in that language.
Roots and traditions
Traditional music
The kora, the stringed instrument of the djeli, has been popular throughout much of West Africa since the Malian empire of the 1240s. The instrument traditionally featured seven strings until the Gambian griot Madi Woulendi increased that number to twenty-one. The kora can be played in several scales including the hypolydian mode (saouta), silaba, sim'bi and mandéka. Mande-speakers are also known for the balafon, a kind of wooden xylophone, the exact characteristics of which can vary depending on the maker. The Dagara, Bwa and Senufo peoples also have their own varieties. Djembe drums, like balafons, are often manufactured in Bobo Dioulasso. The djembe, a vital part of Burkinabé traditional music, is said to be of Malinké origin. It is made from a single piece of wood, usually from a caïlcedrat or lenke tree. The bendré drum (called bara in Mali and dumaa among the Hausa) is a membranophone made from a gourd with the top cut off and covered with goat or sheep skin.
Popular music
Popular music
Burkina Faso's popular music scene has not yet garnered the fame of that of other West African countries, and many popular recordings are imported from Europe, the United States and Democratic Republic of the Congo. In spite of this influx of popular styles, a few early musical acts achieved success such as Koudbi Koala's group Saaba, who perform traditional Mossi music from the region around Ouagadougou, the nation's capital. With a musical career that lasted half a century, singer Amadou Balaké was one of the foremost singers from the country during the 20th century. In his music, Balaké combined Mandé, Mossi, and Afro-Cuban traditions. Other influential artists from the country include George Ouédraogo and Joseph Moussa Salambéré "Salambo". Popular traditional groups from Burkina Faso include balafon bands, percussion ensembles and others such as Farafina and Gabin Dabiré, who uses elements of traditional Burkinabé music. Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso's second-largest city, is a cultural centre of Burkina Faso's Mandé people of the southwest.
Read the full article: Music of Burkina Faso Text under CC BY-SA 4.0
Playing now
What Burkina Faso is listening to in 2026
Articles
No articles for Burkina Faso yet. Save a Markdown file to content/articles/ with
country: Burkina Faso in its front matter.
Live radio
Radio from Burkina Faso
Music only, no news or talk. Stations that play the local tradition come first, then the most listened. They play in the corner of the page.
Station directory by Radio Browser Streams come from each station's own server.
Further reading
Open-access scholarship on the music of Burkina Faso. Every one is free to read.
Indexed by OpenAlex 2 open-access works in all Metadata under CC0 1.0