Since its first performances in 2023, the Trio Gambiana has won an enthusiastic audience for its unique combination of West African music traditions and the energy of a new generation. The name of the ensemble stands for the Gambian-Ghanaian heritage of the three young musicians who switch effortlessly between instruments and styles in their performances – from centuries-old traditions to the jazz-inspired musical style Highlife to modern singer-songwriter influences. The Trio Gambiana has performed in consecutive years at the Shambala Festival and at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. It recently played at the Barbican Centre in London and at the festival Celtic Connections at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall as the opening act for the world-renowned kora virtuoso Sona Jobarteh, who supports the ensemble as its initiator, artistic director and mentor.

Musa Filly Jobarteh (b. 2000) was born into music: he comes from a family of griots, professional poets and singers who have been passing on the epic musical and narrative tradition of The Gambia for many generations. At the age of three, Jobarteh began to play the djembe, performing in public with his father for the first time two years later. In addition, he learned to play additional drums pertaining to various musical cultures of The Gambia and Senegal, for example the serubaa, the traditional drum of the Mandinka, the sabar from Senegal or the bougarabou of the Diola people. He soon played with renowned ensembles throughout The Gambia and Mali before giving concerts with his cousin Sona Jobarteh as a member of her band from 2017 onwards. These performances included Switzerland, Malta and the United Kingdom (New Music Biennial of the PRS, recorded by the BBC). As early as 2012, Musa Filly Jobarteh released his debut album Allah Tentou. That same year, he recorded with the kora player and singer Sidiki Diabaté in Mali and performed with the well-known Guinean singer Sekouba Bambino. As a singer-songwriter and producer, Jobarteh has released successful songs and features.

Born in 2007, Sidiki Jobarteh began to play the calabash, a bottle-shaped gourd drum, learning the traditional repertoire of the Mandé culture from his mother Sona Jobarteh. Starting at the age of five, he also received lessons on the djembe. He first performed in public with his mother and his griot grandfather Sanjally Jorbateh in London at the age of four. One year later, he joined his mother at the Africa Festival in Würzburg, playing djembe, accompanying her during the following years at festivals as well. In 2014, he enrolled at the Gambia Academy, where he began playing balafon (a xylophone with calabashes as resonators) at the age of eight. He gave his stage debut on this instrument in 2018 at the Africa festival. The balafon has remained his main instrument ever since. He has benefitted from the instrumental pedagogy his mother has developed for more than a decade and from her instruction to her band members during intense tours. Apart from balafon and drums, Sidiki Jobarteh plays piano, guitar and is studying composition.

Carllo YABOY (Carllo Kwessi Yeboah-Vildernsky) was born in Copenhagen in 2001, the child of the well-known Ghanaian multi-instrumentalist, producer and bandleader Kwame Yeboah and a Danish musician. As a young child, YABOY discovered music, and shortly thereafter the stage. At the age of three, he began to learn to play the guitar, writing his own songs and performing them at talent shows. With a frame of reference encompassing Ghanaian styles such as Highlife, R’n’B, pop and Afropop, he works on various projects of his own, but also as a producer for other musicians. Thus, with the producer Hans Zamroud, he has released rap-inspired music under the name “saint the duo”, co-written songs for the Danish star Benjamin Lasnier, and performed as a support act and band member during the Danish tour of the Afrobeat artist JJ Paulo. In 2022, YABOY’s debut album Carllo’s Public Diary was released.