Afrika, Guinée, Babila, a traditional Malinke village

600 km inland from Conakry, crossing the river Djoliba you enter a village called Babila. Visitors are welcomed with drum and dance. Life is hard but people seem to enjoy life more than most people in the West. (If you don't want to see the sacrifice of a sheep, start watching at 1min50s). In a neighbouring village gold has been found. Today everyone is digging and the culture is disappearing rapidly. No more dancing and drumming... Enjoy the traditional party halfway the video !

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Afrika
• Guinée
• tradional
• culture
• live
• music
• drumming
• dancing
• percussion

[vermeele]

The girl lived in Conakry at that time.

[vermeele]

Yes, we had a very nice trip and I especially liked Babila where we enjoyed many hours of non-stop drumming and dancing including several mask performances. Nansady Kourouma is indeed a splendid drummer and a nice character. We spent three weeks of drum course with him. If you look on the film at the smile on his face when he is drumming the solo for the dancers, you know he loves drumming.

[vermeele]

Well, that the traditional culture is disappearing is something I've seen in many African countries. The village of Sangbaralla, where most of the video above is taken, is deep in the countryside of Guinée and even there much of the music on parties comes from a modern soundsystem. People that were there before told me they were very surprised to see that there was less drumming and dancing than before. On the other hand, I have only been there for one week so maybe my impression is wrong.

[vermeele]

About enjoying life: this is also not more than an impression. It's a subjective comparison between what I notice in my country (Belgium) and what I saw in the village. So I may be wrong and I'm very interested in what other people think about it. Without doubt life is hard over there but people seemed happy...

[DanielKonate]

@vermeele

thank you!

[DanielKonate]

@vermeele

the one you were talking about is Mamady Kourouma ("Mbandi").

Can you tell me who the mendiani dancer is? a girl from Conakry or from there?

greets, Daniel

[fakoly13003]

merci de mavoir fait revoir babila c'est un grand plaisir



[LyranaH]

Its so cool to see the women doing doundounba holding those weapons and everything!!!

[DanielKonate]

@vermeele

hello again, just one more thing: I can't see Nansady playing in the video, which scene did you mean?

The smile of the drummer around 7:30 is a trained one and has nothing to do with love for music in my eyes. Have a look at the steps he does at the same time, it's a performance thing, not fun. I don't know who he is, do you?

Greetings, D

[DanielKonate]

(3)anyway: very nice video! I guess you had a nice trip to the village of my favourite djembe föla (Nansady Kourouma from Babila)!

Greetings and best wishes,

Daniel

[DanielKonate]

(2)The theory that modern music (sound systems) take over some of the functions of the traditional music (which is real for Mamaya in Kankan and (less, I think) Kouroussa and sometimes even in the villages) is an interesting one, indeed. But as you just recognized, much more researches would be necessary to confirm - or to disprove - it. In fact there's a concentration going on: Drummers from Babila, Baro and Sangbarala play more and more festivals in other villages, & people stop drumming there

[DanielKonate]

@vermeele

(1)Sangbarala and Babila are 2 fine examples for villages where the music is NOT disappearing.

Most of the video shows Babila I think, only the beginning is made n Sangbarala.

If the people who told you that they had seen more festivals had been ther with Famoudou, too, it is possible that they've just seen more, because the trips from 2006 to 2008 (?) where round Tabaski, where you got 3 or 4 days of music garanteed. And then they went to Kumana where the festivals are organized well