WOMAD

Sékouba Bambino Diabaté

From Guinea

Sekouba Bambino Diabaté comes from Guinea. Born in 1963 in a Manding village near the Malian border, he began to sing with groups from the age of nine. In 1982 he joined Bembeya Jazz National, the official band of the Marxist state run by president Sékou Touré – indeed, Touré telegrammed Diabaté with an order to join. Under Touré, Guinea was virtually a closed society, and Bembeya, in the first 20 years of their existence, were never allowed to go abroad, so the West was denied a sight of this band at their peak. But after Touré died in 1984, Bembeya toured abroad, including shows in the UK. On these dates, Diabaté proved himself the equal of Bembeya’s legendary singer Aboubaca Camara, who died in a car crash in 1973.The group’s music began to change over the four albums Diabaté made with them. Like Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keïta, he began to make Manding music with a hi-tech finish. After leaving Bembeya, he scored an instant success with his first solo album, ‘Sama’. Released in 1989, it sold 300,000 copies in Guinea. His 1992 follow-up, ‘Le Destin’, was also released in Europe and world sales total 600,000 (the bulk of them in Guinea). This album featured Diabaté’s seven-piece for the first time and also highlighted his great strengths. He’s a superb arranger, and his gentle, semi-acoustic sound perfectly complements his pure vocal style. In 1996, Diabaté released two albums in quick succession – partly to outwit the legions of pirate cassette-makers in Africa (a selection of these songs were released in Europe as the album ‘Kassa’). Again, Diabaté tried to broaden the appeal of Manding music, bringing in a number of arrangers including Jean-Phillippe Rykiel, who has worked with Salif Keïta and Youssou N’Dour. Last year, Diabaté played at WOMAD’s Bank Holiday Weekend in Morecambe.