Griots

"This is not the first time that a Twitter tag has been used to mobilize young people around a particular event; the most famous previous case has been that of 'griots' - the tag used to report on the youth riots in Greece, which later spread to Europe, arguably also with the help of Twitter." ❋ Unknown (2009)

One of the griots was the magisterial Coleman Hawkins, who invented the jazz tenor saxophone, and whose signature sound was so huge he didn't need a microphone in a club. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Traditional storytellers known as griots entertained the throng gathered around a dusty field. ❋ By CELIA W. DUGGER (2011)

In the past, the hollow bark was also used to bury "griots", a special West African cast of poets, musicians and sorcerers. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Damn! And all this time I thought "griots" was just the Yankee mis-pronunciation of that creamy white hot cereal I grew up on in New Orleans. ❋ Unknown (2005)

Bombardier told me about the griots, Senegalese bards who celebrate the country's heroes with epic poems. ❋ Dhani Jones (2011)

We were trailed by griots who sang songs about Bombardier—not only his accomplishments, but his parents, his grandparents and their grandparents, establishing him as the latest incarnation of a long and proud tradition. ❋ Dhani Jones (2011)

Senegal's politics have been dominated by poets, artists, and griots—traditional storytellers—since the country gained its independence from France in 1960 under the leadership of poet Leopold Senghor. ❋ Drew Hinshaw (2012)

Mr. Bona was born into a family of griots, or musician-storytellers, in the Cameroonian village of Minta—"just 20 houses and a church," he recalled. ❋ Larry Blumenfeld (2011)

Personally, I was entranced and dazzled by the regal appearance of the griots. ❋ Michal Shapiro (2011)

In Mali -- an impoverished landlocked West African nation -- word of the eventually victorious 1991 pro-democracy struggle against the Traore dictatorship was spread through griots, the traditionally singing storytellers, who would wander from village to village. ❋ Stephen Zunes (2011)

"Certain people inside the African-American experience ... act as griots, bearers of the culture," singer Cassandra Wilson told Newsweek magazine in 1992. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Malian koraist and composer Toumani Diabaté hails from centuries of griots. ❋ Unknown (2009)