UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Taj Mahal Quintet and Sona Jobarteh at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22 in Campbell Hall.

Blues legend Taj Mahal will bring his voice and virtuosic multi-instrumentalism to this evening of new world music.

A musical innovator and cultural ambassador, Taj Mahal won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

Joining the Taj Mahal Quartet is Gambia’s griot kora star Sona Jobarteh, who regularly plays to sold-out crowds worldwide.

Tickets are $70 / $50 / $35 / $15 UCSB students. Contact the A&L Ticket Office, 805-893-3535.

Taj Mahal has traced origins of his music to the American South, the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere, then created entirely new sounds again and again.

A multifaceted player, he has become proficient on about 20 different instruments.

“There weren’t an awful lot of people still playing these instruments that came from my culture,” he said. “Not that they didn’t before, but nobody was playing them in the time I was.

“But I wanted to hear them. So I watched people play, got one, sat down, remembered the music that I was listening to, and started picking it out on the mandolin or banjo or 12-string.”

The spirit of Jobarteh’s musical work stands on the shoulders of the West African griot tradition; she is seen as a living archive of the Gambian people.

Her singing and kora playing while fronting her band spring from this tradition.

Jobarteh set up The Gambia Academy, a pioneering institution dedicated to achieving educational reform across the continent of Africa. The academy is the first of its kind to deliver a mainstream academic curriculum at a high level, while also bringing the culture and traditions of its students to the forefront of their everyday education.

For more information, visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.