As part of the MansA Lab incubator, Moustapha “Moos” Coulibaly is developing Les Griots, a studio that combines artistic direction, audiovisual production, and education. His goal is to support individuals and communities in creating narratives that reflect who they are, by empowering them to tell their own stories.
By Selma Chougar
Published on March 12, 2026
For Moustapha Coulibaly, it all begins with movement. A dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer, this Franco-Senegalese artist—born in Le Havre—has forged a self-taught career at the intersection of disciplines. “I’m at the intersection of movement, image, and storytelling,” he sums up. Dance, which he discovered at age twenty, served as a turning point and gradually paved the way for broader work centered on image and storytelling.
A first solo trip to Senegal marked a turning point. Moos, his artist name, found a common thread there between his artistic practices and his explorations of identity. It was in this context that the idea for *Les Griots* emerged—a project initially conceived as an artistic platform to explore African and diaspora cultures.
Initially, the initiative takes the form of visual portraits and videos that blend contemporary art with family memories. In some series, the voice of a mother or grandmother accompanies the images, creating a dialogue between generations. “I wanted to celebrate these cultures without necessarily relying on heavy narratives tied to colonial history,” explains the artist.
In 2021, the project was formalized as a company. Les Griots then became a creative studio combining several activities. On one hand, it functions as an agency where Moos provides artistic direction, production, and choreography for artists and brands. He collaborates notably with rapper Rilès, for whom he now serves as co-choreographer on live performances, and has also produced projects for Médine and Vacra as artistic director.
A second component focuses on the production of original formats—portraits, documentaries, or fiction—designed to explore stories of the African diaspora. Finally, a training program equips creatives and entrepreneurs with contemporary storytelling tools: content strategy, brand storytelling, and video creation using a smartphone.
The project’s name refers to the griots of West Africa, the traditional guardians of memory. But here, the image is reimagined. “In *Les Griots*, I’m not the one telling the story: it’s the others who are telling their own stories through the project.”
To give shape to this vision, Moustapha Coulibaly recently joined the Mansalab program. He sees it as a step toward stabilizing a project that he has largely been carrying forward on his own. “I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, but I needed a framework to get straight to the point.”
Because behind its three areas of activity—agency, production, and training—the goal remains the same: to spread new ways of imagining the world. Or, as a modern griot might say, to tell in a different way the stories that have yet to be written.
