Sona Diabate 20020125 - Paris BBC Radio Session

To stay in the family, after her sister Mama, now Sona Diabate. This time not a K7 (haven't got one), but a recording of a radio session.
Andy Kershaw live from Paris for his BBC Radio 3 show broadcasted 2002.Jan.25. (source: peel.wikia.com)

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 joined Africa's first all-female band "Les Amazones de Guinée", as singer and rhythm guitar player and plays on their famous 1983 live recording "Au Couer de Paris" (one track on very first post).
During the 1980s Sona kept turing with Les Amazones and recorded several solo albums. Unfortunately in 1990 Sona developed a serious illness which took her three years to recover from. She made a great comeback, however, in 1996 with "Gare-Gare". 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.
After a year-long stay in Guinea, she returned to Europe with twelve new songs, four of them featured on Argile's "Mandingo Festival" (2000, CD), the remaining on her solo CD "Tounkana" (2001?) and Sona joined the German
world music group Argile well-equipped to display her talents.

Here to get you in the mood one song from her session:


Discography of Sona Diabate:
-1983: Les Amazones de Guinée -  Au Cœur de Paris (LP, Syliphone #SLP.76)
-1983: Sons de la Savane (LP, Syliphone ‎#SLP.77)
-1988: Sona Diabate & M'Mah Sylla - Sahel (LP, Triple Earth #Terra.106)
-1988: Kankele-ti (1988, LP, ‎#pam.06) reissued on CD as "Girls of Guinea"
-1996: Gare-Gare (CD, Popular African Music #pam.404)
-1998: Argile feat.Sona Diabate - Live In Africa & Europe (CD, Bibiafrica #85642)
-2000: with Argile - present Mandingo Festival (CD, Bibiafrica #97092)
-2001?: Tounkana (CD?, Bibiafrica/Indigo?)
-2002: Les Soeurs Diabate (Mama, Sayon & Sona) - Donkili Diarabi (CD, #pam.406)

SONA DIABATE 20020125 - Paris BBC Session

Enjoy the session, andeat one from my basket!