The first time I call through to Toumani Diabaté’s compound in Bamako, Mali, I’m privy to a heated family conversation but get very little from the world’s best known kora player.

Down a crackled line it sounds a convivial affair. The flighty Mandé language is flying around like sand blowing across the city’s dusty streets.

Toumani is busy, he says. Call back in a minute.

I’d expected as much. There’s no hurry for anything in this part of the world.

It’s weeks later when we finally catch up, by which time Boko Haram has captured 200 schoolgirls in nearby Nigeria and Toumani is beside himself, reminded of the terrorist threat in Mali.

“I like peace. I like love. I don’t like to see people suffer, and it is so sad about those girls,” confides Toumani, who learnt English on his first visit to England in 1986 to record his debut album, Kaira.

Al-Qaeda-linked groups have based themselves in northern Mali for at least 12 years, he explains.

The region is harsh Saharan desert. It has been fought over by nomadic Tuareg rebels, who don’t agree with the name Mali, and Islamic terrorists who wrested control and imposed strict Islamic law.

“Those in Nigeria are the same people who ban music in Mali. They like having control of the Sahara. If one is here in Mali, they all here in Mali. Because the Sahara is very big people can live there for a hundred years and we cannot find them.”

Seven months ago the ban on music by Islamic rebel groups was lifted. December’s elections, after European troops and the UN had entered the country, saw its return to democracy.

But many musicians from the north had already moved south to Bamako and sold their amps and guitars to survive.

“I see that,” mourns Toumani. “It was very bad.”

He goes silent. I wait. “Can you imagine?” he adds. “We spent years and months not playing at all. There was no music.”

The man who counts President Obama among his fans [he called Toumani’s collaboration with Taj Mahal, 1999’s Kulanjan, his all-time favourite record] says the situation is unsettled. Gunfire is still heard in Bamako; Tuareg rebels still have northern strongholds.

But with France reorganising its presence as a UN mission comes to full strength, he is hopeful for the future.

“The question is we don’t know how long it will take. The kids need to go to school in the north. People must be free 100%. But the economic situation is hard and it is hard for the tourists.”

As a Griot, whose words and music are the archive of the 700-year-old Malian empire, he refused to quell his creativity.

He says music is communication. The men play the music and the women clap hands and sing and dance.

So he has made a record with his equally talented son, Sidiki, another genius on the 21-string West African harp and also a multi-award-winning hip hop artist.

“Today it is easier to see many great musicians but it is not easy to see father and sons play together in a good way.

“I come from a long tradition of oral music translating from father to son and from a very old musical family. So this is really serious.”

Toumani’s father, also called Sidiki, recorded the first ever kora album, Mali: Ancient Strings, in 1970.

Now, with his son, Toumani has recorded obscure kora compositions, new versions of old Mandé pieces and originals, including Lampedusa.

“When I listen to Bad Company, to Peter Gabriel, to Pink Floyd, I know rock and roll changes. Today you can see different styles of music: hip-hop, the funky, the soul. So the African music has to move also. We make room, we make it open to make it easier. You can find jazz and hear blues influences. We have to move with the times.”

Even with 700 years of Griot culture to contend with, Toumani wants artistic evolution. His seamless collaboration with the sadly deceased Ali Farka Touré – Ali And Toumani – was another highpoint in his 25-year recording career.

Damon Albarn’s 2002 album Mali Music featured Toumani and Afel Bocoum. The record introduced his work to a generation of Blur fans.

“When I play with different musicians, I get a change inside. I am lucky because we have recorded with Björk, Damon, Taj Mahal.

“But when I play with different musicians, I don’t play their music.

“I only play Mandé and Mali music. They play theirs and we put it together to become a new music.”

You don’t need to speak Mandé to understand Malian music, he says.

“Music has one language. It’s the same in Brighton as in Bamako.”

Its universality is why Toumani’s family’s koras (made in the ancient Diabaté factory) are often gifts for foreign dignitaries offered by Mali’s president.

The Moroccan royal family has one. Juan Carlos, the king of Spain, owns one. President Bush and Fidel Castro are others on a long list the double Grammy winner reels off.

If only he could bring them all together to play kora in the same room, I say. Then he might be able to explain how these items are used to teach Griot culture and values, “To learn how to live, how to be in society, how not to fight and to bring peace and love”.

Out comes a long, deep, wizened laugh. “I’ll try,” he says.