Biography
Coumba Sidibe from Mali helped originate wassoulou, the vigorous and driving sound that seized the interest of west African audiences in the mid-1970s. With a voice of raw force she opened paths for later figures such as Oumou Sangaré, Issa Bagayogo, and Nahawa Doumbia, though worldwide acclaim stayed out of reach. Born in 1950 in Koninko, Mali, she began performing at seven during local harvest festivals, following her father Diara, a noted dancer and sorcerer versed in the ecstatic rhythms and movements of sogoninkun, and her mother, a singer widely admired in the region. Sidibe became the first woman admitted to l'Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali, the state-supported group established to preserve national folkloric traditions, and left its roster in 1977 to join Alata Brulaye, inventor of the kamelengon, a six-string harp patterned after the sacred dosongoni that popular players were barred from using. The instrument’s percussive, danceable tone soon anchored the wassoulou style, a fresh traditional approach that contested the historic authority of Mali’s jelis, the hereditary music-making caste whose origins reach the thirteenth century. While jelis sang established pieces for elites, the kono—chiefly female songbirds at the forefront of wassoulou—took up current topics such as romance and feminism; recordings including “Diya ye Banna” earned Sidibe the title Queen of Wassoulou, and her ensemble Le Super Mansa de Wassoulou became the entry point for rising artists including Sangaré, widely viewed as the most prominent Malian performer of her generation. Despite deep respect at home, Sidibe never drew attention from international world-music listeners, so she and her family settled in New York City in the late 1990s, where she led a weekly Sunday engagement at Harlem’s St. Nick’s Pub. She died in Brooklyn on May 10, 2009.
Albums