The Komo chanter presents himself as a link in a chain of transmission rather than as an autonomous author. Before beginning a lesson or story, he addresses the souls of former masters and asks the ancestors to guide his tongue, preserve the order of his words, and protect the inherited teaching for future generations. His authority rests on fidelity to those who transmitted knowledge before him.

Danfo Sine, described as a Bambara doma and Komo chanter, used witnesses to supervise his recitations. Makoro and Manifin, his two co-disciples, knew the same underlying structure of the tradition and could correct an omission or error. This arrangement made oral performance subject to continuous communal control rather than leaving accuracy to the speaker alone.

Komo transmission nevertheless allows qualified additions. During ritual excursions into the bush, a chanter may introduce meditations or inspirations of his own, but he must distinguish these new words from the inherited tradition and acknowledge his fallibility. Initiates and neophytes memorize such additions, allowing the association's songs to be enriched while preserving a clear distinction between established inheritance and personal contribution.

Initiation joins knowledge to conduct. A disciple who knows only a small number of Komo words may become valuable if he lives them, whereas a master initiate must know the inherited words in their totality and embody them. The tradition therefore measures learning through the transformation of the person, not through verbal accumulation alone.