A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician.
Senegalese Wolof griot, 1890
A Hausa Griot performs at Diffa, Niger, playing a komsa (Xalam).
Griots of Sambala, king of Médina (Fula people, Mali), 1890
Mandinka Griot Al-Haji Papa Susso performing songs from the oral tradition of the Gambia on the kora
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.
The Bard (1778) by Benjamin West
The Bard (c. 1817), by John Martin
William Blake's hand painted engraving of his poem "The Voice of the Ancient Bard" in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience