Sona Diabate & Guinea Band

Sona Diabate & Lenke Conde

Sona Diabaté was born in Tiro, Guinea in 1959. Her father, the famous singer Hadj Djeli Fodé Diabaté, passed on their family's music legacy by teaching Sona to sing and to play the balafon. After attending school for several years, Sona began her career as a griot singer. Her music training included singing with and learning from Miriam Makeba, who was living in Guinea at the time. She also joined Africa's well-known and first all-female band, the "Amazones de Guinée", as singer and rhythm guitar player. She plays on their one and only recording, the 1983 "Au Couer de Paris".

Following the Les Amazones recording, the producer Diapy Diawara invited Sona to Paris to record her first solo album which was later republished by Triple Earth as Terra 106 - Sahel. Sona also completed her military service at this time.

During a later tour in Europe with "Les Amazones", Sona produced her second solo album "Kankele-Ti" in 1988 for the African Popular Music label. This led to her first solo tour in Europe in 1990.

Unfortunately in the same year, Sona developed a serious illness which took her three years to recover from. She made a great comeback, however, in 1996 with her CD "Gare-Gare", which climbed to third place on the European World Music charts.

Invitations to play in the USA and African festivals in Europe soon followed. She became known to a wide audience in Germany when she performed as opening act for Miriam Makeba and Papa Wemba at concerts in Berlin and Wurzburg in 1996. Her performance is included on the 8th African Wurzburg Festival Live CD which continues to wow listeners even today. Sona Diabaté's presence is a must on every compilation of West African music and is part of the popular sampler of African music, African World Beat Vol.2, along side Youssou N'Dour, Angelique Kidjo, Salif Keita and Oumou Sangare.

After a year-long stay in Guinea, she returns to Europe with twelve new songs, four of them featured on Argile's new CD, Mandingo Festival, and the remaining on her new solo CD, Tounkana, due to be released in early 2001.

Sona joins a group well-equipped to display her talents. Over the last ten years the intercultural music project, Argile, has built a strong reputation all over Europe not only for their music, but also for their live performances.