Papa Susso

Alhaji Papa Susso (Suntu) is a griot or jeli, master kora player, and director of the Koriya Musa Center for Research in Oral Tradition.

Other posts included Financial Attaché and Liaison Officer for The Gambia Embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone; he was accreditedt as well to the Republic of Liberia, Guinea and The Ivory Coast.

[2] His signature performances include selections from the traditional epic in celebration of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire and an original composition in honor of the Apollo 11 astronauts.

Susso, now based equally in the Bronx and in the Gambia, travels widely, and has been a premier performer in the "American Classic African Portraits" by Hannibal Peterson.

He performed at New York City's Carnegie Hall twice, for the Baltimore, Detroit, Kalamazoo, San Antonio, St. Louis and Chicago Symphonies, the Louisiana Philharmonic of New Orleans, and Kazumi Watanabe Opera, Tokyo, Japan.

Papa Susso plays the kora at the House Divided literary event, Cooper Union , April 2017.
Mandinka Griot Al-Haji Papa Bunka Susso performing songs from the oral tradition of the Gambia on the kora