Special report

"Musiques Métisses" honours Guinea

World sounds in Angoulême

Angoulême 

01/06/2009 - 

This year, the 34th "Musiques Métisses" festival held in Angoulême (29 May - 1  June), is flying the flag for Guinea, showcasing artists from across the generations. World music lovers have enjoyed everything from the high-energy vibe of Les Espoirs de Coronthie to the brilliance of saxophone patriarch Mamadou Barry.

"Musiques Métisses" got off to a slow start this year owing to a significant reduction in arts subsidies. To compensate for lack of income, organisers were forced to charge festival-goers 5 euros for access to "Le Mandingue", the stage habitually devoted to the festival's "discovery section." Thus, when Erik Aliana kicked off his set at "Le Mandingue" on Friday 29 May he found himself playing to a practically empty house. This was nothing short of a crying shame! Aliana started touring the U.S. and Japan back in the early 2000s, impressing audiences with his haunting forest sounds from central Cameroon. And we're sure those sounds would have gone down well in Angoulême too, if Aliana had only been given half a chance!

Getting the party started  

Over on the main stage, guitarist Justin Adams had joined forces with the Gambian riti (violin) maestro Juldeh Camara and the pair were whipping up an intricate mix of Saharan-style blues. But by this point a buzz had started to circulate about what was going on down at "Le Mandingue." Les Espoirs de Coronthie, the hot young group who have been causing a stir in Guinea over the past six years, had managed to assemble a veritable army of fans despite the steep entry price. The group, who hail from Coronthie, a downtown neighbourhood of Conakry, made a major breakthrough in 2004, becoming a national phenomenon in their homeland. And their popularity soon spread to several other countries in the region.

Les Espoirs de Coronthie's secret weapon? Three truly exceptional young vocalists in the form of Mangué Camara, Aly Sylla and Machété Touré (each channelling his own influences - namely, Sekouba Bambino, Baaba Maal and Aboubacar Demba Camara, the lead singer of Bembeya Jazz). A virtuoso kora-player by the name of Kandia Kouyate (who happens to be the son of the great kora maestro M’Bady Kouyaté and is related to the members of Ba Cissoko). And, last but very much not least, the larger-than-life personality of Kassa, the group's choreographer and self-proclaimed "minister of ambience" who gets his audience mimicking moves inspired by traditional dances from all over Guinea. Les Espoirs got the crowd going wild at "Musiques Métisses" to the hits from their second album, Dunya Iguiri, and songs from Tinkhinyi (their third album released in Guinea in 2008, but which has only just found a distributor in France).

Mamadou Barry - a veteran performance!

On Saturday night, an announcement went out over the loud speakers, declaring that "Le Mandingue" was now free to all - and those who had bought a ticket would be promptly reimbursed. This caused a sudden surge of interest with music fans rushing to "Le Mandingue" just in time to discover the veteran saxophonist Mamadou Barry. Mamadou, who began performing in the late 1950s, picked up biguine with Honoré Copé, mastered the art of salsa in Cuba and learnt to play the flute, the saxophone and the clarinet in Guinea with musical "comrades" from North Korea! And when he took to the stage at "Musiques Métisses" he brought the house down, performing a series of tracks from his long-awaited debut album, Niyo, accompanied by an all-star cast of musicians including the renowned bassist Papus Diabaté.

Halfway through his set, Mamadou invited Sia Tolno, a young singer who guested on Niyo up on stage with him. Sia's smooth on-stage presence gave not a glimpse of her iron core (the young singer grew up between Guinea and Sierra Leone and made a living selling palm oil in Gambia before finally getting to the point of being about to release her own debut album on the Lusafrica label). One of the highlights of the show was a freestyle adaptation of Dave Brubeck's Take Five rendered as an absolutely explosive Africa Five. Definitely set to go down in the annals of "Musiques Métisses"!

3 Questions to Les Espoirs de Coronthie. RFI Musique: How did Les Espoirs de Coronthie come to be a national phenomenon? Aly: We supported Baaba Maal in concert one night and when we came off stage the late Ali Badara Diakité, a well-known journalist on national radio and TV proclaimed that we were "les Espoirs de Coronthie!" (The Great Hopes of Coronthie!) There used to be two different groups: Les Ambassadeurs de Coronthie and Les Eperons. Then, an albino musician left Les Ambassadeurs to launch a solo career and two other musicians stopped playing because of pressure from their parents. The others came over to Les Eperons…and that's how it all began! Our songs deal with a lot of issues that affect Guineans in their everyday lives. They got popular in our local neighbourhood first - and then took off nationwide! Do you feel that in some ways Les Espoirs de Coronthie are direct descendents of  "authenticité" (the "back to our cultural roots" movement advocated by President Sékou Touré)? Kandia: Yes, absolutely! I think the main thing that has survived from that period is a sense of openness. These days, a Guinean musician can play music from Cameroon, from Senegal, from the Congo… Back in that era just about every talented musician in Africa ended up coming to Guinea. That's what happened with my own father, M’Bady Kouyate. He was from Guinea-Bissau but he ended up playing the kora with Les Ballets Africans. Your third album, Tinkhinyi, has only just been released in France, but it came out in Guinea over a year ago now… Manguè: A number of songs on the album such as Tinkhinyi started getting a lot of airplay back in January 2007. We were over in the Malian capital, Bamako, when the general strike paralysed Guinea for two entire months in 2007. All the borders were closed. We wrote the song Tinkhinyi ("Honesty") in just one night and went over and recorded it at Studio Bogolan. We sent the song off to Conakry as a sort of rough demo but it got played everywhere within a very short space of time. Tinkhinyi is about the need for rectitude and transparency… Torrè ("The Law") and Forê ("Poverty") are also songs on which we urge people to assume their responsibilities. Guinea is not some country stuck out in the bush! We're here to prove that great things can happen in our country! Les Espoirs de Coronthie Tinkhinyi  (Wountanara Prod) 2009  Listen to an extract from Témédi

Mamadou Barry - Concert at La Bellevilloise, Paris, 2 June 
Les Espoirs de Coronthie - Concert at Le Studio de l’Ermitage, 5 June

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Julie  Street