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."

Telegraph Blogs 2009

"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."

Telegraph Blogs 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.

How Jazz Helped Hasten the Civil-Rights Movement 2009

Traditional storytellers known as griots entertained the throng gathered around a dusty field.

NYT > Home Page By CELIA W. DUGGER 2011

Traditional storytellers known as griots entertained the throng gathered around a dusty field.

NYT > Home Page 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.

ANC Daily News Briefing 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.

Cuban Cuisine 2005

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: Credit the Egyptian People for the Egyptian Revolution Stephen Zunes 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.

Senegal Music Star Seeks Presidency 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.

At Home in Music's World Larry Blumenfeld 2011