🇨🇮🎤🎸🥁🎺 The great Aïcha Koné is one of Côte d’Ivoire’s iconic singers. She started out in the Radio Télévision Ivoirienne orchestra, under the tutelage of Boncana Maïga. In 1982, she released one of her biggest hits, Adouma. Her powerful voice drives the bewitching melody of this song, which was also covered with great gusto by the late Koko Atéba under the title A Ndol’Am. The album is produced by guitarist Jimmy Hyacinthe, who was already at the helm in 1980 with Bébé Manga’s cover of Manfred Ebanda’s Amie-O. Alongside Aïcha Koné, we find the too rare Cameroonian drummer Georges Happy, and Paco Séry on percussion, disguised under the not very discreet pseudonym of Paco Solo. They take us on a Timba-E that’s more makossa than ever, before the brass of Jean Buzon and Patrick Bourgoin envelop us in the warm, swinging Sou-Té-Manebo and Napessiyo-Motéma. After another diversions close to makossa, the album ends in the trance of Gnadémongnéra, which is hard to resist.
Adouma – Aïcha Koné, 1982
