For the past six months I have been working on a project in collaboration with the independent London-based music publisher Carthage and funded by a Creative Voucher award from Creativeworks London; exploring how music publishers use copyright to sustain and support the musical careers of traditional musicians outside the West. We focussed the study on the griot musicians of Mali in West Africa, several of whom, including Kassé Mady Diabaté who is widely regarded as one of Africa’s finest singers, are represented by Carthage.
