Kaba Atabekov (born 1926) is one of the prominent representatives of contemporary storytelling culture and a People's Artist of Kyrgyzstan. He was born in the village of Tort-Kul in the Ton district of the Issyk-Kul region. He began singing "Manas" at the age of ten. He associates the beginning of his storytelling career with a prophetic dream in which a noble old horseman strictly instructed him to recite the epic.
Atabekov has seen and heard Sayakbay Karalaev many times. For some time, he worked at the Ton district house of culture as a storyteller artist.
In the capital, he is a frequent participant in programs on national television, acts in films, participates in competitions and festivals of manaschy as a jury member, and conducts his master class, educating a new generation of professional manaschy.
Kaba Atabekov's narrative style, with its variety of intonations and accents, and its expressive emotional transmission of the epic's imagery, resembles the style of Sayakbay Karalaev.
