Searching for song for Fefo

[djembefeeling]

Hey Daniel,

thanks so much! This song has a pushing energy compared to the other two songs.
He sings it straight on the sangban, doesn't he?
Can you tell what other villages he puts in the place for Baro in the song?

best, jürgen

[Daniel Preissler]

Hello everyone,
Daniel thanx a lot for the song file! Here's what I get of it (I needed my collegue Marcus' and his wife Fatoumata's help for the translation of the last line):

Baro kai la
Fèfö sungudun (kamberen)
kèmè ni bilolu
kontèntoka

I le!
Fèfö sungudun (official maninka spelling: sunkudu or sunkudun)

I le!
Fèfö kamberen

as Daniel Leufer said:

People of Baro
Young girls/boys play the Fe
One hundred and fifty
you can't count them (french: conter) (because they are too many - 150 or so d;-) )

You! girls play fè (or: play fè, girls!)
You! boys play fè

(I think this last part is a Camio stage arrangement. Marcus and Camio and some others put this "song" on a disc some 8 years ago, but I don't have it here. Ithink it was more or less the same.)

The words follow perfectly the dundunba/sangban combination.

The other villages that are mentioned are Gbendö (situated between Baro and the RN 1, the big street leading from Kouroussa to Kankan) and Soronkolen (I think the official -french- spelling is different - small village next to the RN1 between Baro and Kankan. The "upper guinean Tamagali", a rest station for people going from Conakry to Nzérékoré or Abidjan. Both villages are in the Gberedu region.

I would like to add that Fèfö is usually danced by girls only. Baro might be the only village (or one of very few where at least for some time some boys (maybe just 2?) danced Féfö as well. Has anyone here seen a fèfö fête over the last years in Baro? I have not!
One of these few boys was Sékou Condé, the blacksmith of bells, who already danced with the barati at the age of 25 (if there were european guests). According to him they once had a Fèfö arrangement in Baro that had nothing to do with the simple (double lines) of dancing girls we know from other villages. The way he described it, it was more like a roman army formation (with himself in the middle ).

Have a nice time everybody!
And Daniel: song files like this one are always very welcome!!!
I hope I can load up another Fèfö track (just singing) during the next months: Marcus and I will try to digitalize my old MD recordings, ahem... there must be one of my favourites on one of them.

Best regards
Daniel

[djembefeeling]

inikè!

[Daniel Preissler]

yes! I've found it!
Sékou's foto of him as a young boy in front of a huge (in comparison to ther villages) fèfö group. Might be 15 years back...