Habib Koite' was born in 1958 in Mali to a noble line of Khassonké griots.

Koite' recounts, "I wanted, from when I was very little, to follow my mother around everywhere - she was a griot, a singer. And my father was a guitarist and my older brothers also played guitar. So I was always surrounded by music but I never thought about my future in music or that I could be big in music. But the music was just there in my blood. My mother, father and brothers all played and my grandfather, who I knew, was a specialist in traditional stringed instruments, mainly the ngoni."

Like many modern griots, Koite' brings a new understanding to the griot tradition as communicators and connectors. He is renowned for his personal interpretation of the guitar, tuning it on a pentatonic scale and playing it on open strings like the traditional griot kamale n'goni.