Sékou Timité has one ambition: to follow in his late father’s footsteps and become a „Djeli“, a griot, guardian of the oral memory in West Africa. Being the only one of his siblings to take an interest in the obsolete art of the griot, he leaves his family and his Malian village behind and sets off to confront the world on the roads of the legendary Mandingo Empire. Torn between his desire for greatness, his family’s material needs and the time-consuming apprenticeship, he confronts the obstacles of a sometimes chaotic present and crosses paths with some of the region’s greatest griots, as well as with ordinary people struggling with everyday life. His journey of initiation becomes a poetic portrait of a West Africa in search of its common memory.