The Griot Who Remembered Mansa Musa

Every king needs a memory. For Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire, that memory was carried not in ledgers or chronicles, but in the voices of the jeliw — the griots. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the role of the jeliw in preserving Mansa Musa's reign: how they were trained, what they sang, and how their oral histories survived centuries without writing. They discuss the Kouroukan Fouga, the epic of Sundiata, and the specific jeliw families who guarded Musa's legacy — families like the Kouyaté and the Diabaté. Lucas explains how griots were more than praise-singers: they were diplomats, genealogists, and living archives. The conversation touches on the tension between written and oral history, the challenge of dating events in griot tradition, and what modern scholars have learned from recording jeliw performances in Mali and Guinea. It also examines the limits of oral tradition — what gets remembered, what gets forgotten, and why Mansa Musa's own rise is shrouded in silence compared to Sundiata's. A thoughtful look at how history is made, not just recorded. #MansaMusa #MaliEmpire #Jeliw #Griot #KouroukanFouga #SundiataKeita #OralHistory #WestAfrica #Kouyate #Diabate #Niani #Timbuktu #Mande #AlUmari #IbnBattuta #EpicOfSundiata #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo