Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is known for palm-wine guitar music and the Krio social songs of Freetown, carried abroad by S. E. Rogie, whose My Lovely Elizabeth became a West African classic. In the 1970s bands such as Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats played hard-edged Afro-funk, and after the civil war Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Janka Nabay's electrified bubu and the thumb-piano grooves of Kondi Band reached international audiences. Today Krio pop and Salone hip-hop artists such as Emmerson, Kao Denero and Drizilik lead the local scene.

S. E. Rogie was a palm-wine guitarist born in 1926 in Pujehun District, who sang in Krio, Mende, Temne and English. His 1961 single My Lovely Elizabeth spread his gentle fingerpicked style across West Africa. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1973 and moved to England in 1988, where Real World Records released his album Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana in 1994, shortly before he died in London that July.

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars formed in 2002 in refugee camps in Guinea, where musicians including Reuben Koroma, Grace Koroma and guitarist Francis Langba had fled the civil war. Their music is built on reggae but draws on older Sierra Leonean rhythms such as baskeda, gumbe and palm-wine guitar. A 2005 documentary told their story, and their debut album Living Like a Refugee followed in 2006.

Bubu is the processional music of the Temne people of northern Sierra Leone, played by groups blowing interlocking parts on bamboo and metal pipes, first in Temne ceremonies and later in Ramadan processions. Janka Nabay recorded electric versions in Freetown during the 1990s and, after moving to the United States, released the albums En Yay Sah and Build Music with the Bubu Gang on Luaka Bop. He died in Sierra Leone in 2018.

The kondi is a thumb piano played across Sierra Leone. Sorie Kondi, a blind street musician in Freetown, became its best-known player after the producer Chief Boima discovered a video of his song Without Money, No Family. With the London producer Will LV they formed Kondi Band, whose albums Salone (2017) and We Famous (2021) set kondi playing over electronic dance production.