I love balafon playing and listen to a lot of it. To my mind the all-time master of this is instrument is the Malian Kélétigui Diabaté (1931 – 30 November 2012). He made many innovations including playing two balafons tuned differently so that he could change the basically diatonic instrument into an almost fully chromatic one.
When you have an hour to spare give your ears, in fact your whole being a treat by listening to Great masters of the balafon - A tribute to Kélétigui Diabaté