Mamane Barka

Mamane Barka (1959 – 21 November 2018) was a Nigerien musician, and one of the world's most prominent players of the biram. He died on 21 November 2018, aged 59. Malam Mamane Barka was born in 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, a fishing community on Lake Chad, for traditional songs.