Great Political of Ifangbondi.
To Add a Punchline
They were Sincere brothers
Ifangbondi was more than a dance band, It was a movement for all youths in Senegal and the Gambia who were yarning for a cultural revolution social justice and also political change. I had my music and entertainment schooling from Ifangbondi and I am so grateful to god that they thought me.They never liked the name The Ifangbondi Band. They don't like the word "The" Ifangbondi and they don't like the word band on it." Unbrakable spirit. The Gambia public have judged them from their material weath but they never cjerished materialism. They were the trend setters of our time,they taught us how to dress, how to dance and how to fight gfor our rights.
Nation builders
Ifang bondi was a school. It was more than a band. They had Daii Maga partners also that was an Administration department and a Tansport system department. They also had a Techical department, teaching technicians how to repair musical instruments, make recordings and sound engineering. The honour Gambia Technician Eliman Cham spent his days and nights at the technical department of Ifangbondi working, assisting and repairing.They opened the office of music in The Gambia at Hope street and had a rehersal hall at Kombo street in Banjul.
They've Been there and Done that
The saw it all in Europe and many parts of the world. They brought it home to develope the art.Many of the band were very funny and sincere. They had musicians coming from all over the sub-region to join their stage sessions sometimes there are more than 15 musicians on stage. They would travel far to search for traditional musicians, They have researched thoroughly in Furukafu, Konting, Balanta Balafong not to mention the tribal vocal music of fula, Jola, Wollof and Manding and numerous instrumentals.
Band For the people
Unlike many famous bands of today Ifangbondi played in almost all towns and villages. They played many many benefit concerts for schools refurges, rastafarian pilgrims and raised money for hospitals and helped bought wheelchairs for the handicap including Saihou Jagne. Ifangbondi knew what to expect from ordinary Gambian and the Gambia public knew also what role Ifangbondi had in their lives and the expected of them. In the begining it was going well from Brufurt to Brikama, from Gunjur to Sukuta, From Soma , Georgetown,To Bansang to Basse.The band alone cannot to take the organisation top the next level( it needed Art funding) in starting a art sceneand music industry in the Gambia. They did their best and thought the sub-region how to play musical instruments. They really made me proud to be Gambian.
The Big Let down
They have applied through the government aty that time to open up an art centre for teaching music and arts and also for live performances and shops for selling music and machandise.The President at that time gave them a huge piece of Land at Tobacco Road for the project Music and art centre.All the money they made was geared towards this project.They took bank loans and got into high gear in anticipation of this Arts centre. Later the government took the land back sold to Momodou Musa njie due to discontect in the band because they were singing in tribal dialect. The intellectual elite did not like what they were doing as artists and composers of music. They were denied a lot of previlidges and assistance from the state and the private sector. The Gambians were brainwashed by the elite of thay time and make them to believe that they are a failure and not worthy of any assistance or an audience.
The band never recovered since then.
Great African Thinkers
Pa Touray, Badou Jobe and Senemis Taylor are one of our greatest African composers of all time. It is written already that is why we are revisiting it now. But not forgetting the great Samson Gassama, Pa Nije Drums, Late Pa Njie Bass, The late Ali Harp, Karamo Sabally, Late Pal.amin Drammeh(manager) and the originals including late Malando (played for Al Jarreau, Rolling Stones and Abba), and Yankuba Saho in advancing the AFRO MANDING SOUNDS. There was a short spell with meastro guitarist Bye Janka of Gelewarr. He was praised by The Jazz Guitar legand Eric Gale as one of the finest guitar players around.
Note: Gelewarr was a good band with solid compositions between Lie Ngum and Bye Janha. The have a catalogue of fine compositions.
The music is still alive. It has to be played again, it is the character of GAMBIA.
As in Music, So in life.
Oko Drammeh
Former Promotion Manager
Ifangbondi
Momodou Buharry Gassama <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Biography:
For more than twenty years the Gambian roots band Ifang Bondi ('be yourself') has had a leading role within West African popular music. It was one of the first groups that decided to return to its African roots by playing traditional Manding music.
To talk about an influential band such as Ifang Bondi, one needs to know how its origins came about. It was the year 1970. The auditorium of Legon University in Accra (Ghana) was filled to capacity. There was an environment of restless expectation awaiting the arrival on stage of the Super Eagles of The Gambia. The devastating performance of highlife, soul, Cuban music, reggae and western pop songs which followed, faultlessly delivered by the men in sharp suits, revealed why this band from The Gambia had become West Africa's number one superstar attraction. West Africa had just completed its first decade of independence and was in the throes of anticolonialist sentiment, pan-Africanism and 'Say it loud, I am Black and Proud'. This was to be the last time most people saw the Super Eagles, leaving only the legacy of their all-time classic album 'Viva Super Eagles'.
Unknown to their thousands of fans, this was not the end of the story, but just the end of the First chapter in one of the longest-running sagas in African musical history. The truth is that the founders of the band, leader Badou Jobe and vocalist Paps Touray had taken a deliberate decision to end Super Eagles at the height of their popularity. Being true revolutionary pan Africanists and musical pioneers, they had become increasingly disturbed by the music they were playing and the image they presented. Despite the greater fame and fortune that was theirs for the taking. They radically gave it all up to go back to square one, back to the roots, to create something African for Africans, to challenge the cultural imperialism of the west which still gripped the continent. They went into the bush to sit at the feet of the jelis - the master drummers and the old maestros of the kora, xalam, and bala - the guardians of a thousand years of culture and tradition.
After two years of exhaustive research and hard practice, Badou Jobe and the few musicians like Paps Touray and Ali Harb, who had felt inspired to join, came back with unique new music, born from their amazingly rich heritage. To their modern electric outfit, including the novelty of an electric organ, they had added traditional drums, which, next to the drum kit's chromium sheen and the fancy sunburst of the guitars, looked like alien objects from another planet. The new repertoire, painstakingly composed according to the rules of the jeli teachers, had meant a struggle with unfamiliar scales and mind-boggling rhythm structures. They proudly coined their music the Afro Manding Sound after the legendary Manding empire, cradle of their West African culture.
By 1973 the group had shed its eagles' feathers to reappear as Ifang Bondi ('Be yourself), a fearsome Manding spirit that puts the newly initiated to the test and seeks out evildoers within society. The band's First public performances were greeted with dismay and disbelief by their devoted fans, who were outraged by the 'bush' sound of mbalax and jambadongo rhythms, although the musicians had been careful to hide the sabar (drums) under the British flag. At that time this type of music was considered to be played only at weddings and family-gatherings and not for big audiences. But bandleader Badou Jobe, veteran of an earlier bade against caste taboos to become a musician in the first place, stuck by his guns through the sticks and stones of this initial period. The only support at this time came from fellow musicians, later to form Toure Kunda and Super Diamono, who appreciated the Afro Manding Sound for the momentum it was bound to give African music. Gradually
their revolutionary ideas got accepted, and this was the birth of the popular West African modern music that has since catapulted Toure Kunda, Youssou N'dour, Mory Kante, and Baaba Maal onto the world stage.
The role of Ifang Bondi has been pivotal - by rehabilitating the traditional musicians they made people aware of their own heritage, and they offered new dimensions to African artists in search of an authentic sound. To rigorously deprive a devoted public of their pop idols, the ultimate symbol of modern western cultureto induce them to set their own cultural values and to get rid of the inferiority complex, a lingering legacy of colonialism, had not been a venture for the faint-hearted. But in the end the effort proved to be worthwhile. Ifang Bondi have achieved their goal - to create something African for Africans - beyond expectations.
Badou Jobe's innovative ideas, based on a vast musical knowledge, have crystallized into a comprehensive artistic concept that created also the inimitable sound, Ifang Bondi's trademark. Throughout the years, Ifang Bondi has continued to develop its unique music which reflects the enormous variety and richness of authentic styles, be it Wolof, Mandingo, Fula, Jola or other. The band's line-up shows a similar ethnic diversity They put fresh blood into musical traditions, not only by a prolific output of original material but also by organizing festivals in which they invited pop, jazz and reggae musicians from as far as the US and Jamaica to play with traditional performers.
From the beginning Ifang Bondi have acted as a true academy of music from which many great artists have graduated. Outside West Africa Ifang Bondi has always had a solid cult following. The infrequency of record releases, all sought after collector's items, plus the enigmatic personality of its bandleader, who seems quite happy to stay out of the limelight, "I once opened the door to the hell of stardom, had a good look around, and slammed it shut again", has only enhanced the mystique surrounding this group. Badou Jobe received the prestigious Kora All Africa Music Award, also known as the African Grammy Award, in 1989.
The band:
Badou Jobe - bass
El Hadj Samb - vocals, percussion
Jali Momodou Suso - kora, vocals
Juldeh Camara - riti, vocals
Lin Diaw - guitars
Bassirou Mbaye - sabar, bugarabu, tama, jembe
Tafa Ndiaye - keyboards
Ibou Gueye - drums
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Discography:
Saraba (Disques Griot, 1979)
Mantra (Interstate Records LPH 2366, 1983)
Sanjo (D&K 860017, 1989)
Daraja (MW Records MWCD 3009, 1994)
Gis Gis (MW Records MWCD 3019, 1998)
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Booking:
Musik + Aktion. Address: Uta Hofmann, Musik + Aktion, Egilolfstr.77, 91349 Egloffstein, Germany. Phone: +49 (0) 9197697970, Fax: +49(0)9197697971. E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Source: http://worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=1021
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