Bakoyo Suso belongs to one of three main social categories that Mandinka culture recognizes as part of its historical legacy: freeborn, professional endogamous groups and descendants of slaves. This chapter presents an extract from the narrative of Al Haji Bakoyo Suso. Bakoyo's family engaged in farming and trade while also offering their services as bards to the rural elite. Chiefs, traders, and cattle-owners retained the resources to promote the jali as artists and oral historians. Listening to a jaloo was a common and greatly appreciated form of entertainment. Bamba's historical repertory included the epic of Sunjata Keita and the oral traditions of the major pre-colonial polities along the River Gambia. Bakoyo explains where most of the River Gambia slaves hailed from, and describes both the ruthlessness of the rulers toward their subjects and the trading families' pride in having large slave entourages.