About the author

Dave Kobrenski is an author, musician, artist, and ethnomusicologist whose work explores the music, history, and cultural traditions of West Africa. For more than two decades, he has studied, performed, and documented the traditional music of Guinea and the wider Mande world, working closely with master musicians including Famoudou Konaté, Sayon Camara, and Lanciné Condé. His long apprenticeship with Condé, a master of the Maninka flute tradition, became the foundation for much of his work with the tambinfulé, or Fula flute. He continues to make contemporary Fula flutes through Kassa Flute Co., founded with Condé in Conakry in 2012, carrying forward the hands-on work of building, playing, and teaching the instrument.

Kobrenski is the author of Djoliba Crossing, Drawing on Culture, Finding the Source, and The Mande Flute. As a musician, he performs on Fula flute, kamale ngoni, djembe, and balafon. He lives and works in New Hampshire.