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  Balla et ses Balladins (also known as « Orchestre du Jardin de Guinée ») were a dance-music orchestra formed in Conakry, Guinea in 1962 following the break-up of the Syli Orchestre
National, Guinea's first state-sponsored group. Also called the Orchestre du Jardin de Guinée, after the « bar dancing » music venue in Conakry that still exists today, the group made a number
of recordings for the state-owned Syliphone label and become one of the first modern dance musical groups in Guinea to use traditional musical instruments and fuse together traditional Guinean folk
music with more modern influences.
« The group was named after their leader trumpet player Balla Onivogui, who was born in 1938 in Macenta, a small town in
south-east Guinea and was a student at a conservatory in Senegal before being recruited to play in the Guinea independence celebrations in 1959. He quickly became a member of the state's leading
orchestra, the Syli Orchestre National, who were tasked with working with music groups throughout Guinea to train them to play the traditional musics of the country. In order to expand this programme
the government split the orchestra into smaller units, one of which under the leadership of Balla became Balla et ses Balladins and held a residency at the Conakry nightspot Jardin de Guinée. (The
other group emerging from the split was the equally renowned Keletigui Et Ses Tambourinis.)
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from left to right, standing :
Bamba Kourouma (bass)
Abdou Camara (drums)
Pivi Moriba (trombone)
Balla Onivogui (trumpet)
Amadou Thiam (congas)
Fodé N'Diaye Soumah (tenor sax, flute)
Sankumba Diawara (guitar)
from left to right, seated :
Manfila "Soba" Kanté (vocals)
Sékou "Le docteur" Diabaté (guitar)
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Les Balladins made a number of recordings for the state-owned Syliphone label, which was founded in 1968. The group also
toured abroad representing Guinea and some members worked as backing musicians for Miriam Makeba when she lived in Guinea in the 1970s. In 1970 Balla had a falling-out with some government officials
and was briefly replaced as leader by his friend and trombone player Pivi Moriba, to be restored following the intervention of president Sékou Touré himself.
Guinea suffered a series of economic crises in the 1970s and in 1983 the national orchestras were all established as private
concerns. In 1984, President Sekou Toure died, and the Syliphone label ended. Balla et ses Balladins continued to play during the Lansana Conte era, and when Balla Onivogui retired in the late 1990s
his group recruited new musicians and still performs in Conakry.
Balla Onivogui died from a heart attack on 15 March 2011 in Conakry at the age of 75. »
In the Balla et ses Balladins, great artists such as Sekou Bembeya Diabate (lead guitar), Manfila Kanté (lead guitar and vocals), Kemo Kouyaté (rhythm guitar), Famoro Kouyaté (bass guitar), expanded their fames ; as the time of the band has ended in the last Eighties, most of its
members ran out in a solo career, each in their own style, and created famous albums.
« Definitely, it is impossible for me to imagine a big electric dance band from Africa, or anywhere else on Earth for that
matter, better at conjuring a mood than Balla et ses Balladins. » Barry Eisenberg, Beat Magazine.
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