Mamadou Alioune Barry was born in 1947, in Guinea —then a French colony. His father played the accordion and drums in one of the most famous orchestras of that time, Le Pavillon Bleu, in Kindia. He taught Mamadou his first lessons and passed on to him his passion for music. Mamadou Barry is a multi-instrumentalist —he not only plays tenor, alto and soprano sax but also flute and percussion — as well as a fine connoisseur of all the sub-region’s rhythms and music styles. Open to all musical trends, he has insisted on self-producing his first album Niyo under his name, in a studio of Conakry. With his cool yet energetic Afrobeat style and the frenzied rhythms of the forest that he has invited into his music, ‘Master’ Mamadou Barry showcases all the facets of his talent in this recording, notably his gift for hypnotic Mandingo melodies.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.