Vieux Farka Toure & Roberto Fonseca

“I am open to all music,” Vieux Farka Touré once told The New York Times, “coming from everywhere in the world.” He was talking specifically about his collaboration with Israeli pianist Idan Raichel, about how their chance encounter in an airport that led to two cross-cultural albums had less to do with being Jewish or Muslim and more to do with being human. That statement, though, is also a thesis statement of sorts for Touré, a scion of Mali’s most famous musician, the guitar god Ali Farka Touré. In his still-young career, the intricate and intuitive guitarist—who is deeply steeped in tradition but also makes no apologies for his influences beyond his homeland—has covered his father’s songbook with Khruangbin, collaborated with the likes of Dave Matthews and Derek Trucks, and cut records with fellow Malian mainstays like Amadou & Mariam. His vision for what he can do with his music has no borders.

In 2024, Touré rendezvoused in a Mali studio with a fellow musical scion intent on exploring how the music of his native tradition connects to the rest of the world: Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca. Born in Havana to a singer and drummer and related in a roundabout way to Chucho Valdés, Fonseca entered the Buena Vista Social Club orbit when he was still in his mid-20s. But he has long reached east to Africa and north to the United States, connecting to Cuba’s musical roots and branches. His 2015 live album, At Home, betrayed a remarkable chemistry with Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, following his collaboration with her—and a subsequent tour featuring kora giant Yacouba Sissoko—on the 2012 album Yo, which The Guardian praised for its “poise and experimentation in equal measure.” The results of the sessions between Touré and Fonseca have yet to be released, but, at Big Ears 2027, these two forces of musical globetrotting bring their own bands together.