Mamane Barka

Malam Mamane Barka was a Nigerien musician, and one of the world's most prominent players of the biram African harp. He died on 21 November 2018, aged 59.

Biography

Malam Mamane Barka was born in 1958 or 1959 in Tesker, a town in the east of the then autonomous republic of Niger. He came from the nomadic people of Toubou. As a player of the Ngurumi, a two-string plucked instrument, he gained popularity in his homeland and neighboring Nigeria. In 2002 he decided to devote himself to the study of Biram. It is a five-stringed instrument used by the Boudouma people, a fishing community on Lake Chad, for traditional songs.