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Tokounou All Ability

Guinea / NYC

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Listen To Single

 

Recorded live on Sept. 5, 2024, by Tyler Wood at The Hurley House in Hurleyville, NY. 
Mixed and mastered by Tyler Wood at Sauce Farm Studio, Catskill, NY

 

About The Band

Sidiki Conde is a Guinean musician, drummer, dancer, and educator based in New York. At the age of 14, Sidiki Conde lost the use of his legs as the result of polio. Knowing that he would not be able to participate in the coming-of-age ceremony if he could not dance, Sidiki reconstructed the traditional steps using his hands instead of his feet. He became so adept that he was able to travel to the capital city, Conakry, and form Message de Espair, an orchestra of artists with disabilities he recruited from the city’s streets. In 2007, Sidiki was awarded an National Endowment of the Arts heritage fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts.

Band Members

Sidiki Conde - Gongoma, Krim, Vocals

Moussa Drame - Krim, Djembe, Vocals

Mamoudou Konate - Dundun, Vocals

Abdoulaye Toure - Bolon, Djembe, Vocals

With veterans of West Africa’s premier dance and musical ensembles including Ballets Africains and Les Merveilles d’Afrique, the celebrated dancer and musician Sidiki Conde founded Tokounou All Ability in 1999, namesake of his tribal village. Through Tokounou All Ability songs, dance and musical arrangements, Conde celebrates the traditional arts of Guinea and chronicles his unique journey as a person with a disability. Honored by the NEA in 2007 as a National Heritage Fellow, Sidiki leads a mesmerizing performance that will thrill audiences with the power of the human spirit. Tokounou All Ability offers performances and workshops in traditional West African song and dance for adults and children of all ages and abilities.

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