Salif Keita

Salif Keita was born on 25 August 1949 in the village of Djoliba, Mali, into the royal Keita family, direct descendants of Sundiata Keita, the 13th-century warrior-prince who founded the Mali Empire, a noble lineage in which music was traditionally forbidden.

Keita was born with albinism, a condition considered an ill omen among the Mandinka people of Mali at the time, and faced severe rejection as a result, including being disowned by his father, expelled from school, and ostracised by the local aristocracy for both his condition and his forbidden love of music.

Determined to pursue his passion despite this rejection, Keita left Djoliba for Bamako, where he taught himself guitar, slept in the streets, and began performing in bars before joining the Rail Band of Bamako and later Les Ambassadeurs, fleeing political unrest in Mali in the mid-1970s for Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Keita's 1978 album Mandjou, composed as a tribute to Guinean president Sékou Touré, became an overnight success across West Africa, and his gravelly, powerful voice earned him the nickname 'the Golden Voice of Africa', as he went on to become one of the most internationally celebrated figures in African music history.

In 2005 Keita founded the Salif Keita Global Foundation to raise awareness of albinism and advocate against the discrimination faced by people with the condition across Africa, dedicating his acclaimed album La Différence to the cause; he announced his retirement from recording in 2018, having spent his career transforming the stigma of his birth into a defining symbol of African musical excellence.