Taga was born on December 30^th, 1961 in Yanfolila, the capital of the Wassoulou region in Southern Mali. He first started playing on a milk powder can to entertain his childhood friends whom he roamed the neighboring farms with. Amongst those friends was Yakoub Sidibe who plays Bari Dunun and Konkoni on this album. They started playing Kamalen N’Goni together and later moved on to learn drumming. They stood by each other when they faced any kind of trouble and both say to this day: “We pray to God not to let anybody set us apart.”

Taga recalls a period of time during his youth when there was a lack of drummers in his village, forcing the people of Yanfolila to hire musicians from neighboring villages to play for ceremonies. This led elders from the village to encourage Taga to take his drumming more seriously; he then began his apprenticeship with Mansa Bagayoko. Mansa was a famous Djembe player from a neighboring village who had been trained by Mamadi Sidibe from Segu (a village in Wassoulou). Taga had to travel a long distance to study with Mansa and remembers being exhausted with swollen hands through much of it.

Besides being considered a Master of the Djembe, Taga is a traditional medicine man, a healer, a hunter and a farmer. When he is not engaged in ceremony or ceremonial music, Taga spends his time in Wassoulou with his family where he grows millet, rice and corn.

The repertoire on this album contains both traditional and original songs over the traditional drum repertoire of the Wassoulou region of Mali. Whenever possible the name of the song and the rhythm it is played over are listed.