Guinea’s Amazons: 52 years on and still going strong

Fifty two years, later they still represent the ideal which first brought them together. The Amazons of  Guinea is a generation of international award-wining group. For Guinean musicians, the art is a deliberate choice to opening chapters of memories in times past. It is a vehicle that has kept alive more than anything else, the […]

Fifty two years, later they still represent the ideal which first brought them together. The Amazons of  Guinea is a generation of international award-wining group.
For Guinean musicians, the art is a deliberate choice to opening chapters of memories in times past. It is a vehicle that has kept alive more than anything else, the images and messages of valiant warriors such as King Béhanzin of Dahomey (now Bènin) who is a part of the country’s history and fought for equality in all realms, and peace.
Established in 1961, the Amazons are driven by their need to be more than mere examples but to also be the symbol of the emancipation of the African woman.
With a criteria being that before one is a member of the group, she must first belong to the Gendarmerie, a part of the military charged with police duties among civilian populations in French speaking countries.
In the past they also had to first be able to ply a musical instrument or sing. But today they can pick up these skills after they have become members of the group.
Our reporter met with some members of the group who had gathered for rehearsals. Their grades were from elève gendarme, cadet to adjutant to Margie-chef; each one a mother, a wife or just getting started with life.
Leader of the group, Adjutant Yaya Kouyate who is also the lead guitarist and a soloist said she has been leader of the group for two years but a member for five. “Growing up, being an Amazon was the envy of a lot of Guinean women because of the respect and accorded them. But many couldn’t be a party of the group because they had no interest in the gendarmerie.”
Kouyate who learned the guitar from her brothers as a teenager said, being an Amazon gives her room to express herself in so many ways in which words fail her. This she proved as her very deft fingers plucked the guitar string and let go dancing her heart out in various steps and rhythms which make one see her as ‘Guitar Girl’ who would give Nigeria’s Victor Uwaifo a run for his money.
The mother of two’s reward for her audience’s positive response was evident in the following tones which she provoked from her guitar matched with her facial and bodily expressions.
Securely set in between her legs, Francoise Kourouma, handled the ‘djembe’ drum like she was born to play the instrument.
Each contact her palms and fingers had with the leather covering of the bamboo structure made sounds that vibrated through the air right into one’s stomach causing little musical rubbles that made the legs move and rise from one’s sitting to a dancing position. Her conversation with her ‘djembe’ is an experience to remember for a life time.
Little wonder she produced very vibrant sounds having been raised by a mother who was a gendarme and an Amazon. “Playing drums is something my mother, who was also an Amazon, did. From when I was five, I went to rehearsals with her and watched her play the drums.
Margie Chef, Macire Touré, who plays the saxophone (alto), this was a hobby. Being in the Amazons is something of a dream come true as this was one of her major reasons for joining the military.
A mother of two, she says, her husband who is also in the force has been supportive of her and allows her fully participate.
For new entrant and lead vocalist, cadet gendarme, Houssenatou Konate, “music takes me there.” There was no better forum to express myself than being where I am.”
True to her words, leading the group to play on of Nigeria’s favourite highlife tunes, ‘Shake, shake, shake, shake your body…’Houssenatou rendered the song as traditionally and as aptly as it could have been. It was a show that only one whose talent came naturally could have put up.
The story of the Amazons is not one of a bed of roses. The musicians have woven their skills to the point of intersection of wills and passions, to overcoming obstacles and complexities. Their story is rooted in the history of independent Guinea 1958 which amplifies the struggle of freedom, equality, and everything short of social justice.
Giving a new dimension to art whilst promoting a new mindset in the minds of Guineans and allowing their women take on roles which allow them grow and develop in all spheres of their lives.
This was the spirit which inspired the then Minister of Defence, Keita Fodéba and mothers in 1961 to start the first female African orchestra under the National Gendarmerie which later became the Amazons of Guinea. They begin with mandolin, congas, violins, cellos and basses. With these acoustic instruments, they developed a simple and pleasant airy music. Their songs urged African women to free themselves from their burdens of complex inherited customary and feudal systems .
In 1965, the group decided to update by integrating electric guitars, saxophones and tenor Alto and even a trumpet.
Armed with these new tools, they musically war against the paternalism of society.  With their patience, endurance and stance, the Amazons succeed as they punched to win the hearts of the skeptics.
Their presence was also felt in Nigeria at Festac77 to Lagos where the women, according to Suleiman Diallo who was at the time a student of the University of Lagos, “took the world up as guitars distilled masterful, melodious notes on the Nigerian soil. It was a kind of solemn communion.”
They have also performed in Morocco, Tanzania, Algeria, DRC, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and at Horizon 79, Berlin, amongst others.
Twenty years after their first album recorded in Paris in 1983, the group came up with a second, ‘Wamato’ recorded in Bamako, Mali, in 2005. Since this release, the Amazons have not rest on their oars.
In 2007 they went to promote their album on invitation by the French media. In 2008 the group participated in the largest market show in Seville, Spain as well as toured with BEMA for the exhibition of African music in Ouagadougou and Cotonou. This was followed by a performance at Dakar’s Africa Party festival, the same year.
In 2009 the group staged performances at the in Segou, Mali. In 2011 the female orchestra was invited by the French Institute in Bamako to celebrate the international music festival.
In July this year, they made a statement at FESPAM in Brazzaville (Congo) where they won second place.
According to the group’s technical and musical director, Sékou Kanté, “this is a new generation of Amazons who constitute a national and international monument and symbol. It is therefore our responsibility to take care of them and all that concerns the orchestra for the sake of future generations.
“The group has acted as support to females who have considered themselves downtrodden. This is a benefit most of the women can’t get anywhere else.”
In his experience as manager of the group since 2005, Moussa Diabate said, “The orchestra represents all the values of Africa for the past decades.
“With the military in power years ago, the group was abandoned and it suffered a setback for twenty three years. But they had something going for them because Guinea was keen about them being the first all-female group in the country.
It took three years after this to bring them back to what they used to be and so far they have only improved.”
Initial members were Nyepou Haba, Mato Camara, Fatou Soumah , N’Gady Doumbouya  who are now deceased. Fatou Cissé, Kankou Camara, Djenabou Bah Diallo and Salematou Colonel retired from the group due to old age.