Homepage, unofficial

Alias:

Sekouba Diabate

Member of:

Bembeya Jazz National

Language:

Mandinka

Genre:

Moderne mande

Instrument:

Male vocals

Articles:
On Sekouba Bambino/Guinea
Charlie Gillett's (BBC) review of "Sinikan"

On the Internet
Music samples (Search for artist)
On lyrics in African music

Biography

Sekouba Diabate was born in a village 25 km from Siguri in the small West African country Guinea, near the Malian border. Both his parents were griots, or "djeli", which is the word for blood in Mandinka. Sekouba Diabate's mother Marlama Samoura died young, Sekouba was not yet 3 years old, and he never got to know her properly. Still she became, through her songs, that Sekouba later heard on the radio, one of his most omportant musical inspirations. Young Sekouba early showed rare musical abilities, but his father was strongly against Sekouba becoming a musician by profession. He wanted Sekouba to take over his own transport company. But music life in Guinea was prospering during Sekouba's childhood and youth, under the musically interested president Sekou Touré. Several state supported bands were established, one of them the legendary Bembeya Jazz National. Here Sekouba became lead singer as time went by, some years after the death of main vocalist Aboubacar Carrara in 1973. Sekouba who by the time was only 16 years old was invited to sing in the band by president Touré himself who had heard Sekouba sing in a local band. People in Siguri were not very willing to let their great talent go, but had to give in when three ministers from the government were sent to negotiate about Sekouba's transfer to Bembeya Jazz. The state supported bands were privatized in the nineteen eighties, and Bembeya Jazz fell apart. In 1990 Sekouba Bambino, as he now had started to call himself, founded his own band and made his first cassett "Sama". In 1992 came the album "Le Destin". A few years later he met producer Ibrahim Sylla and has since become cooperator on several of Sylla's projects, among others in the salsa band Africando.
Sekouba Bambino’s strength lies first and foremost in his voice, with its formidable spectrum. “Had he been a European, he would have become an opera singer,” claims Lucy Duran, a leading specialist in West African music in England.

Relevant artists:
Mory Kante
Kandia Kouyate
Salif Keita
Bembeya Jazz National
Africando

LE DESTIN
World Circuit/Out of Africa/1993

KASSA  
Sterns Africa/1997

Sure enough, a singer of the West African Mandinka tradition. As one can hear, Ibrahim Sylla’s breath sighs in the background, so this is a top produced album. Bambino’s warm voice suits the tasteful arrangements. The backing musicians are comprised of the West African A –list, with choristers such as Djanka Diabate and Kandia Kouyate, with Baba Sissiko on guitar and Diely Conde on kora. In order to have variation on the disk, five arrangers were employed – from Guinea, Mali, Cameroon, Cape Verde and France. The Frenchman is none other than Jean Phillipe Rykiel, who has played with Salif Keita and Youssou N’Dour. About Rykiel, Bambino says, “He is an “African”, even though he is French. He is blind, so he sees no colour, but he understands Africa through his hearing.”
The disk’s atmosphere is pleasingly relaxed - but not so much that it loses its nerve - and swings nicely on occasion. On the reflective song, “Damensena”, it is on the advice from Sylla added something as non-African as a piano. But it functions stirringly. On the traditional song, “Diommaya”, which is 9 minutes long, Bambino sings alongside Kandia Kouyate to a backing of ngoni and xylophone. Mighty! This moves well in the wake of Salif Keita and Mory Kante. A warm and and lovely disk.

SINIKAN  
Sonodisc/Syllart/2002

Sekouba Bambino's long-awaited follow up to the choice "Kassa" is finally here! This is in fact Sekouba Bambino's first album for five years. But everything comes to he who waits... for Sekouba redeems himself! As with the earlier album, "Sinikan" it is well produced from the very first to the very last note, but without seeming over-arranged or artificial. The producer is, as before, Ibrahim Sylla who always knows what he is doing. Here, with arranger Francois Breant, he shows his ability to strike a balance between the traditional and modern in an admirable manner. Breant formerly worked with Salif Keita and had a hand in his classic, "Soro".
"Sinikan" is quite a funky album with both brass and violins. However, instead of employing a large brass section or allowing modern drums and bass to dominate the traditional West African instruments, such as kamelengoni and balaphone, Sekouba Bambino allows the modern instruments to compliment the traditional ones that form the heart of the music. The traditional and complicated African rhythm patterns are all there, but with these arrangements the music forms new and exciting sound pictures. They are for instance grippingly heard on the lovely song "Diougouya Magni", where the French harmonica player Jean-Jacques Milteau crops up in the backing with his own melody line. The harmonica, rarely heard in African music, creates a fantastic dynamic in the song, lifting it to new heights along with accompanying the female backing group. On the James Brown classic "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" one might think that Bambino & Company would be tempted to funk the whole thing up, but instead they do the opposite. Bambino sings the track in a traditional West African manner, with a rippling kora as main instrument! "Sinikan" is an album with no weak spots.
It goes without saying that Sekouba Bambino's beautiful voice is what makes this such a great album: It is a warm, powerful and pliable instrument that takes us on a musical journey that just lasts and lasts.
(Click record company for music samples.)

AMBIANCE BALLON  
Syllart/2004

"Ambiance Ballon" is a peculiar album. After two brilliant records, solidly crafted in every aspect, Sekouba Bambini suddenly pops up on the cover on his latest project as a cartoon character, in Guinea's National football team gear! And several songs sound like follow ups of Pepe Kallés big hit "Roger Milla" from the early 1990's. These songs on "Ambiance Ballon" are soukous inspired dance tracks, with an added stadium audience, football comment voice over and at full throttle. The idea is hardly to celebrate the European soccer championships in Portugal. Sekouba Bambino has perhaps already started to celebrate the World Soccer Championships in South Africa in 2010?
The record is produced in JBZ-studios i Abidjan and in Bamako, Mali. The production is a little uneven, with the synthesizer distinctively heard in the backing, too clearly to my taste. There's a lot of echo and space on some occasions, i.e. on "Taximan". But that's the end of my list of complaints, for in every other aspect "Ambiance Ballon" is quite an accomplishment! The total playing time is 78 minutes, so if the football songs don't take ones fancy, one can simply use the edit function, and there is still more than an hour of good music left. The band, which counts 25 credited men and women, is brilliant, and it sounds about the same as it does live. And Sekouba Bambino's crew doesn't stand back for any West African top bands, Salif Keita's and Youssou Ndour's included. This is first and foremost about excellent voices, Sekouba's own of course, one of Africa's greatest. But also his five choir ladies - Mariam Tounkara, Djeneba Dansako, Princesse Benita, Maimouna Barry and Mahawa Kante, to mention them by name - keep top standard, and send alternate shivers of heat and cold down my spine. The timing is perfect, the voices as clear as the water in the rain forest. The songs are Mande traditionals, carefully modernised, and with beautiful korasolos from no less than Toumani Diabate and Mamadou Diabate on several tracks. For instance on "Wassaba", which goes on and on, with Bambino's voice hypnotically calling his choir ladies and the kora.
As mentioned there are some minor points to criticise, espescially if one compares this disc with Sekouba's two earlier masterpieces. But who cares as long as the soul and true spirit is there? I'm in trance.

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Swahili: Francis Chagula (francis.chagula@malvik.kommune.no)
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