Sundiata Keita, the first mansa of the Mali Empire, rose from a childhood of disability and court humiliation to reshape West Africa in the 13th century. Drawing on Mandinka griot oral traditions and later Arabic accounts, this episode follows his exile in Mema, his military education and his return to liberate his people from the Sosso king Soumaoro Kanté.

We explore the coalition formed at Sibi, the Battle of Kirina around 1235, his response to the Jolof insult, and the governing system he built at Niani. We also look at how later storytellers reshaped his religious identity and the competing theories about his mysterious death around 1255.

• Why the bullying of his mother Sogolon was a political strategy at court
• How Soumaoro’s balafon projected an aura of invincibility and how Kirina shattered it
• The meaning of the name Sundiata, Sogolon’s lion
• The Great Gbara assembly and the Manden Charter recognized by UNESCO
• How cotton cultivation and weaving built a domestic economy for the empire of Mansa Musa