[4] She was the second wife of Faama (King) Naré Maghann Konaté, and mother of Mansa Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire in the 13th century.
[7][3] In the epic, Sogolon is portrayed as the daughter of the "buffalo woman" (Dò Kamissa, from the land of Dô[8][9])–so-called because of her "ugliness" and hunchback, and so was Sogolong.
Due to the power and influence of Dankaran and his mother, Sogolon and her children were refused asylum by many states within the Ghana Empire[5] they traversed seeking protection.
[14] In Mema, Sogolon encouraged his disabled son Sundiata to fulfill his destiny, and return to Mali (Manden) and take the throne.
[2][9] Accompanied by a force of soldiers given to him by the King of Mema,[14] Sundiata returned home with his siblings, and at the plains of Sibi, gathered some of the Mande warrior clans including the future conqueror of Kaabu, Mansa Tiramakhan Traore—where an alliance was formed to liberate their people and land from the powerful Soumaoro Kanté.
[4] According to David Conrad et al., she is "one of the great heroines of Manding oral tradition, and her death is invariably noted as a significant event" in the narrative.