Sekouba Bambino

Sekouba “Bambino” is the stage name of Sekouba Diabaté, a singer and musician born in Guinea, West Africa, in 1964. Bambino was born and raised in the village of Kintinya, near the border with Mali, into a family of musicians descended from a long line of griots.

His mother, whose songs he later heard on the radio, died when he was three years old; her music became one of his main influences. From the age of eight, Bambino Diabaté sang with local groups and began to make a name for himself. At sixteen, the then-president, Sékou Touré, a music lover, encouraged him to join Bembeya Jazz. Thus in 1983, at nineteen, Diabaté joined Bembeya Jazz, Guinea's best-known musical group, where he received the nickname “Bambino” to distinguish him from a guitarist in the band also named Sekou Diabaté. With Bembeya Jazz, the young singer made his first tour of Africa in 1985, then of Europe the following year.

Sekouba Bambino released his first solo recording in 1991 and continued, throughout the 1990s, to record as a solo artist while also singing with the African salsa group Africando. His 1994 album, Syli nationale, paid tribute to Guinea's national football team. In November 2015, Bambino was caught up in an attack attributed to Ansar al-Din operatives on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali, but managed to escape.