Tenin Diawara released his second album this Friday, March 25, during a dedication concert at the People’s Palace in Conakry. Entitled Guineya, this new 20-track opus takes up what has made it successful for three years already: dance music, spontaneity and committed lyrics. Meeting with “the Queen of Banyan”.
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Banian is this village near Faranah, in Upper Guinea, where Tenin Diawara spent her childhood and to which she never ceases to pay homage in her songs. From a “line of griots”, his mother and father are musicians. She sings in the ceremonies, he plays the guitar. They are absent parents. “I grew up in a large family. I had to stay home to take care of my siblings. I couldn’t go to school, I wish I could.”
The 28-year-old speaks with extreme sincerity about the difficult times in her life, without ever feeling sorry for herself. It is this ability to evoke delicate subjects, with great accuracy, which today makes Tenin Diawara unique in the Guinean musical landscape.
His songs have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube and deal with sometimes painful social issues. To name but a few: the diktat of whiteness and the misdeeds of depigmentation, materialism which ends up replacing feelings in romantic relationships, violence against women.
Tenin Diawara receives us in his hotel room just a few hours before going on stage. Relaxed. She ends her sentences with bursts of laughter, sings or launches into improvisations. Tenin Diawara composes his melodies and imagines his lyrics like that, so simply.
An idea comes to her, she rushes into the studio to record it. “She may very well be inspired by this interview and make a song from it”, laughs his manager, Irénée Bangoura. At the same time in charge of communication, turner and friend, under his multiple hats, he watches over her.
Scandal
Face without make-up framed by an orange wig. It is the only artifice that Tenin Diawara wears that day. But when we ask him the question, a bit mischievous: do you think of making a song to encourage African women to take charge of their hair? She responds without hesitation and walks the talk, pulling her smooth synthetic hair. Below, flattened braids are drawn. She then displays a proud smile.
One of his titles sums up his state of mind. In N’fatara pigna(“I did well” in French), released in 2020, it encourages Guineans to free themselves from the gaze of others.
In the clip, she does not hesitate to surround herself with effeminate dancers. She was heavily criticized for that. “People said she wanted to impose homosexuality.” More Tenin Diawara takes over: “Everyone does what they want to do.”
The scandal culminates in January 2021, during a concert in Kamsar. On stage, a young man lifts his clothes and reveals his bare buttocks. The career of the singer is heckled. Tenin Diawara is banned from performing. “His artist brothers awaited his downfall”, remembers Irénée Bangoura. But after a few weeks, the sanction is lifted and the performer even allows himself the release of a new composition. Failure is a snub to its detractors.
This city of Kamsar, Tenin Diawara knows it well. At the age of 13, she was sent to live with her aunt, a singer, in the port city of Basse-Côte, a few kilometers from the Bissau-Guinean border. Sure of the talent of little Tenin, who has been performing in ceremonies since she was 7 years old, her mother wants her to improve with her sister.
