The members of the band Guinea C may come from varied backgrounds – members include a dance teacher, a former football player, an avid cook and four kin of a famous griot family – but they all share a deep love for their native country. So much so that they named their band after it, and the "C' stands for Conakry which was added to further distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea Bissau. That is not to say that they have overlooked the support they have gained in their adopted country of Gambia. Formed in 2004, their first album, Bakadaji, released in 2007 is named for the hotel that they call their home base and where they often rehearse their songs. It was with the help of the manager of Hotel Bakadaji, along with some tourist friends, that Guinea C was able to produce its first album, recorded by Wole Rendall at AFG studio, in the Gambian city of Serrekunda. The band since 2004 had been playing in hotels, restaurants and bars in Gambia. Still, the members of Guinea C remain loyal their roots. They have painted their musical instruments in the same colours of the Guinean flag: red, yellow and green. All the instruments the band uses are traditional Guinean instruments, all of which are made by the band members themselves. The instruments they use include the bolong bata, a 3-4 stringed instrument, with a base of two half calabashes fastened together, the upper-half covered in goat hair; the bongo, a form of thumb piano, also made of calabash; the casnete; the percussion instruments the kirinn, the dun dum; the balafon, which is a xylophone made of wood; and the Guinean drum.
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Discography
Album: Bakadaji
Label: Guinea C
Year: 2007
--Fanen Chiahemen
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