Manfila Kanté

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Kanté Manfila , actually Manfila Kanté (* 1946 in Farabanah , Kankan , Guinea ; † July 20, 2011 in Paris ) was a Guinean guitarist , singer , arranger and songwriter who was the leader of the band Les Ambassadeurs .

Live and act

Manfila was the first son in a family of 26 children. When he was eight he played the balafon , a wooden xylophone , before starting to play his cousin's guitar. At the age of 14 he left school in Kankan and came to live with an uncle in Abidjan , from whom he learned the traditional pieces on the balafon and the guitar; he began to play both instruments at weddings and other parties. A sponsor paid him music lessons. He then became a guitarist in the bands Independence Jazz and Rhythm de la Bia . In 1966 he presented his first single Horoya as Kanté Manfila et Son Orchester . After six more singles, he moved to Mopti in Mali . In April 1970 he wanted to return to Kankan after his father died; on the route in Bamako he learned that he was threatened with arrest in his home country Guinea. Manfila stayed in Bamako, where he briefly belonged to the Rail Band , before becoming guitarist with Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, which had been in existence since 1969, in 1972 and soon became the director of the orchestra.

At Les Ambassadeurs , Salif Keïta and Mory Kanté played among others . In the following years he also wrote songs with Keïta. In 1975, the first single by Kante Manfila et les Ambassadeurs was released ; the following year the LP Les Ambassadeurs du Motel . In 1978 he moved with most of the band members to Abidjan to perform as Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux . There they had a hit with the Keïta / Manfila song Mandjou in honor of the then President Sékou Touré . Probably the band's best-known song was Primprin , recorded on a US tour in 1980. In addition, Manfila submitted further recordings with Keïta.

After returning, Keita and Manfila went different ways; Keita moved to Paris in 1982 and Manfila followed him in 1985. At first, with little success, he tried a solo career there; Finally, in 1987 the album Musicale Mandingue was created , which is strongly influenced by synthetic Afropop. His next acoustic album, Tradition (1988), was most successful before he returned to the electrically amplified guitar for Diniya (1990). In Guinea he recorded the album Kankan Blues (PAM, 1987), with which he returned stylistically to the griot music of his youth ("guitarre sixe - dry guitar"). With Günter Gretz, who later released this recording, he also produced the album N'na Niwale (1994) in Paris and Back to Faranbah (1998) in Guinea . In 1991, Salif Keïta worked again when he was guitarist and arranger on his album Amen . He moved to Conakry in 2005 but soon had to return to Paris for medical examinations. He died in Paris in July 2011 after a long illness.

Kanté Manfila is considered a talented arranger and songwriter who, as a guitarist, combined European playing styles with techniques of traditional West African stringed instruments.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Obituary in The Independent
  2. ↑ From this point on he changed the order of his name so as not to be confused with his musician cousins ​​Manfila "Dabadou" Kanté and Manfila "Soba" Kanté.
  3. ↑ See Les Ambassadeurs for other recordings (discography)
  4. ↑ Dans l'Authenticité. Vol. 1
  5. ↑ Obituary at Worldmusic
personal data
SURNAME Kanté, Manfila
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Manfila, Kanté
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guinean musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Faranbah , Guinea
DATE OF DEATH July 2011
Place of death Paris , France