In few other African nations are history and culture--including music culture--so profoundly intertwined. Guinea's Atlantic Ocean coast includes the source of the Niger River, which winds north as far as the Sahara desert before turning southward toward its mouth in Nigeria. Upper Guinea participated in a succession of powerful empires, Ghana and Mali early in the second millennium, and the Islamic states of Fouta Djallon and the Tukulor Empire in the 19th century.

The Manding people were the most powerful force at the time the French began aggressively colonizing Guinea in the 1890s. The Manding fighter, Samory Touré resisted the French for 20 years until he was captured while reading the Koran in 1899. All of these events remain clear in the minds of Guineans, in part because they have been and continue to be sung by the great Manding griots (jelis), the most significant and popular musicians in the country to this day.

The French turned Guinea into one of their most lucrative colonies, establishing a head tax to force Guineans to farm peanuts, fruit and coffee, and to harvest rubber, an important resource for France up until the 1920s. Resentment against the French was especially strong in Guinea following the colonial era. Guinea became independent in 1958, the first African nation to do so. A former labor leader and the mayor of the capital, Conakry, Sekou Touré became the president, and under his leadership, the nation voted overwhelmingly not to participate in Charles De Gaulle's Franco-African confederation. The price for this act of defiance was high as France retaliated by cutting off aid and support and recalling technical workers. Touré pursued a policy of "positive neutralism" during the cold war, but with France leading the chorus of nations condemning Touré as a communist, most of his help came from the eastern block.

Touré was not a communist, but rather a firm Africanist who succeeded in forging a sense of nationhood, in part through skillful minipulation of culture. He supported local, regional, and national music and dance ensembles, including pop orchestras charged with fusing all the country's ethnic traditions with popular international styles, especially Cuban music. This may be Touré's most positive legacy, for he was also a brutal dictator who brooked no dissent and executed anyone who might pose a threat to him, including former allies and friends, such as Fodeba Keita, the founder of the famed Ballets Africains.

Facing popular dissent in the late `70s, Touré tried to open up Guinea's economy, but by then the damage was profound. When he died in 1984, leaving the nation to a military junta under Lassana Conté, Guinea was the worst off of the former French colonies, despite its superior natural resources. Conté held nominal elections in 1993 and '98, but they were neither free nor fair. Compounding Guinea's grave challenges, a flood of refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia have added further strain to a near-ruined economy.

Music in Guinea

Guinea's political and economic woes have undermined one of the richest and most exciting music scenes of the early post-colonial period. So perhaps it's not surprising that Guinean music identifies more strongly with pre-colonial ethnic groupings rather than the nationalism of the modern era. Guinea's great instrumentalists, singers, and traditional pop bands are best thought of as part of a cultural continuum that includes what is now Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast and other countries in the region. Guinea's position as part of the larger Manding diaspora is especially important. In Gambia, the kora rules Manding music; in Mali, it's the ngoni (or koni); in Guinea, the wooden-slatted balafon is the most important instrument for accompanying griot singers. As such, balafon parts find their way into a great deal of Guinean pop.

Echoes of Cuba are strong in Guinea's modern music. While this is true to some extent about Manding traditional pop, and much other pop, throughout West Africa, the degree to which Manding melodies and harmonies and Cuban rhythms merged in Guinea is striking. Old and new Guinean pop songs are instantly recognizable because of this characteristic.

The dance bands that started under Touré's nationalistic regime in the 1960s--Bembeya Jazz, Keletigui et ses Tambourins, Balla et ses Balladins, Les Amazones de Guinea. Lanaya Jazz, Horoya Band, Super Boiro--were perhaps the greatest in West Africa at that time. Historic recordings on the Syliphone label, many of them newly available on CD, testify to a time of extraordinary talent and creativity. Guitars spin out grand griot melodies softened with the lilt of Latin pop, and some of the most powerful traditional singers in Africa front dance bands bursting with energy and excitement.

Though Conakry's music scene has been in decline for twenty years, exceptional talents continue to emerge. Following in the footsteps of international singing stars Mory Kanté and Sekouba Bambino Diabaté, singer Ibro Diabaté and kora player/singer Camara Aboubacar have produced some excellent recordings. Ibro Diabaté has particularly touched people with his songs about modern life. Popular singers Kerfala Kante and the younger Oumou Dioubate also continue to update the griot pop scene. Manfila Kanté, the acclaimed guitarist of Salif Keita's 1970's band Les Ambassadeurs, remains active as well. And Kora player Djeli Moussa Diawara has amassed an impressive catalogue of releases, including recent experimental projects pairing his virtuosity with flamenco artists, and now with American blues guitar player Bob Brozman. On the pure traditional front, Guinea's Ballets Africains continues to tour, as do smaller performance ensembles Fatala and Wofa. Both of the latter have released recordings as well. One outlier worthy of mention is Momo Wandel Soumah, a trumpet player who has released two fascinating albums blending indigenous Guinean music with jazz.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre