In conjunction with the exhibition Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa, join us on October 23 for a pop-up performance in the exhibition galleries as part of UNIQLO Friday Nights. The performance will occur twice throughout the night at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., each performance lasting 20-minutes. No registration or RSVP is required to attend.
This performance brings together YATTA’s compositions of poetry, vocals, and electronics, with the singing and kora playing of Malang Jobarteh. The kora is a traditional stringed instrument indigenous to Western Africa. Through improvisation and call-and-response, the duo interweaves sounds of the American South and the West African coast.
These pop-up performances are part of UNIQLO Friday Nights, when MoMA is open late every Friday night and admission is free for all New York State residents.
YATTA is a Sierra Leonean American artist and composer working across film, sound, and installation. In 2024, they released PALM WINE, named one of The Wire’s Best Albums of 2024. Drawing from the legacy of their great-uncle, pioneering Sierra Leonean guitarist S. E. Rogie, the album reimagines palm wine music through storytelling, layered vocals, sampling, and experimental composition. Their film, installation, and exhibition work includes FATHAGOD.EXE at Blade Study and Iron + Palm Wine at Art Omi’s Newmark Gallery. Their music has appeared in films like Nanny and Seeking Mavis Beacon, and their writing has been published in Pioneer Works’ Broadcast and The Brooklyn Rail. YATTA’s work has been presented at MoMA, MoMA PS1, the Kitchen, the Shed, Tate Modern, MOCA, the Getty, Performance Space, Poetry Project, and Rewire Festival. As an educator and speaker, YATTA has contributed to programs at Bard College, New Inc, Pioneer Works, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute, Princeton, the New School, and Wesleyan University.
Malang Jobarteh is a New York–based Gambian/Senegalese kora performer, composer, and educator from a hereditary family of West African musician-historians. He carries oral histories through music and storytelling while extending the kora tradition through original composition and collaboration. He founded Jalikunda in 2019, an organization supporting jali, gewel, and griot traditions and Manding performing arts in New York City. His educational work includes preserving and sharing Mandinka histories through song and kora with his uncle, Salieu Suso. With pianist Chelsea Randall, he developed the Crossings project, connecting traditional and new West African kora music with African and Western piano repertoire, and cowrote the kora-and-piano works “Passage” and “Flight.” His work has been presented at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, Wave Hill, Basilica Hudson, St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, and Rutgers University’s Center for African Studies. His releases include Badema and My Family, both issued in 2022.
Major funding is provided by the Agnes Gund Education Endowment Fund for Public Programs, the Jeanne Thayer Young Scholars Fund, and the Annual Education Fund.