Throw down your heart - the complete Africa sessions

"The film and music sought to trace the West African origins of the banjo itself. The original album won a pair of Grammys for Best Contemporary World Album and Best Pop Instrumental Performance. A decade on, Craft Recordings with Rounder issue a boxed collection that packages the Throw Down Your Heart albums with the previously unissued The Ripple Effect, an unreleased live duo album from Fleck and kora master Toumani Diabaté (...) [from] a 22-date duo tour in 2009 ... The interactive rapport between [Fleck and Diabaté] offers an instinctive level of communication that reflects friendship, intimacy, and goodwill. "Bamako" and "Nashville" trace intersections and differences in the musical cultures of both cities. The pair retain their individual identities even as they commingle in a new collective musicality".

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"A dozen years ago, the American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck took a journey across Africa to research the origins of the instrument ... Now belatedly comes a collection of ten previously unreleased banjo-kora duets [with Toumani Diabaté] recorded live, available as a stand-alone double vinyl album or as part of a three-CD plus DVD set including the earlier releases under the title Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions ... Relaxed and intimate in style, the duo are at their most playful on an hilarious 'Dueling Banjos', the Eric Weisberg tune heard in the film Deliverance; after Diabaté has peeled off a mind-boggling lick on his kora, Fleck responds with an equally staggering flurry of lightning-fingered banjo phrases. 'Kauonding Sissoko', a tribute to Baaba Maal's late kora player, begins in more serious fashion, although Fleck cannot resist dropping in a few bars of Stephen Foster's 'Oh Susanna', which Diabaté gleefully echoes. A delight from first note to last".