I have collected Syliphone vinyl recordings since I first travelled to Guinea in 1994. During those early trips to West Africa, I puchased vinyl records and cassettes in every town. Of all the local recording labels I came across, it was Syliphone, however, that fascinated me, and which focused my research on the music of Guinea's 1st Republic.

In 2001, when I was conducting my PhD research at the offices of Radio Télévision Guinée (RTG), a technician there showed me a hand-written catalogue of some 50 audio recordings on 1/4" magnetic tape. I was amazed to see that these were Syliphone era recordings which were “uncatalogued” and had not been released on vinyl. Their existence was largely unknown outside of local Guinean radio broadcasts. I assumed that this small catalogue of recordings constituted all of the RTG's music collection, especially as a large part of the archive was destroyed in 1985 when the building was bombed by Guinean artillery during an unsuccessful coup (see below). The government's collection of Syliphone vinyl was also apparently destroyed in the attack, and thus it appeared via the hand-written catalogue that only these few dozen reels of analogue recordings remained.

It was important these reels of 1/4" magnetic tape be preserved. In 2007, therefore, I applied for funding through the Endangered Archives Programme, whose projects are in partnership with The British Library and seek to preserve documents associated with endangered cultural heritages. My project proposal was two-fold: firstly, that I create an archive of the complete Syliphone catalogue, whereby I would digitise all of the recording label's original vinyl releases to compact disc format and make them available in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Guinée (BNG); and secondly, that I preserve and digitise the audio reels of Syliphone era songs recorded on 1/4" magnetic tape which lay dormant in the archives of the RTG (and which were listed in the small hand-written catalogue).

In June 2008 I received the welcome news that my application for Major Research Project funding had been approved. In August, I was in Guinea. I had been in correspondence with the Director of the BNG, Dr Baba Cheick Sylla, for several months, and over the years of the project Dr Sylla became a trusted confidante who was central to the project's success.  

Upon arrival in Guinea, I met with my translator, Allen Nyoka, and with Dr Sylla we began to arrange meetings with musicians, RTG personnel, government ministers, and any interested people who were associated with the Syliphone recording label. The newly created Ministère de la Culture des Arts et Loisirs became project partners, with Minister Iffono declaring that the project was his "number one priority". Riad Chaloub, the vocalist and harmonica player from the orchestra Camayenne Sofa, and the number two in the Ministry, was also very supportive of the project, and his assistance was considerable. Another member of Camayenne Sofa, Jean Baptiste Williams, the orchestra's lead guitarist, was a senior journalist in Guinea at the time, and he arranged the media liaison. A series of interviews on Guinean radio ensued, and my days were thus spent promoting the project in the media while meeting with a broad spectrum of government and other representatives to arrange access to the archive and the digitising of its materials.

Before leaving Australia, I had made CD copies of the entire Syliphone vinyl record collection, and in Guinea I gave these to the surviving musicians of the orchestras. It's a sad truth that many musicians in Africa do not receive royalties from their music, and in Guinea most of the Syliphone era musicians - great musicians who who were widely recorded and who devoted their lives to progress culture during the independence era - do not even have a copy of the music they made. During the era of President Sékou Touré (1958-1984), Guinean musicians were in the employ of the government, who held copyright and ownership of their recordings. In the 1960s and 1970s, though they had propelled Guinean music to the forefront of popular African music, many Guinean musicians of the era lived in obscurity and poverty following the death of President Touré and the subsequent regime change. As my archival project gained momentum, and became something of a cause celebre, I brought their predicament to light by exposing what I knew of the sale of their Syliphone recordings…

President Sékou Touré oversaw a cultural revolution in Guinea which was proclaimed under the name of "authenticité". It funded and promoted Guinean arts and culture and led to the formation of several arts agencies including Syli-Cinema, Syli-Photo and Syliphone. In the 1990s, following the death of Sékou Touré, the government of President Lansana Conté disbanded many of these state-funded cultural enterprises and sold the entire Syliphone catalogue to Ibrahima Sylla, the manager of Syllart, a music licencing and distribution company. The sale was not made public at the time and few had knowledge of it. My disclosures concerning the sale of the Syliphone catalogue to Syllart caused considerable controversy. Many musicians were angry upon learning that they had been denied the opportunity to gain royalties from their music, for example through their union, the Bureau Guinéen du Droit d'Auteur (BGDA), and that all monies from Syliphone sales (for example, via reissued compact discs) were in effect controlled by Syllart. Syliphone was no longer a Guinean recording label owned by the nation. As to the BGDA, “they eat our money", as one musician informed me. I will also never forget the words of another musician in his late 60s, as he took me aside, apologetically and humbly, talking softly in my ear: "I just want a little money before I die". I explained to him that I do not own the rights to Syliphone, as abject as that was, and all I can say is that it is up to Ibrahima Sylla, whose claims to great swathes of West African music should bear considerable scrutiny, to make good and see that the musicians receive fair payment. [Postcript: Ibrahima Sylla died in 2013, with the rights to the Syliphone catalogue maintained by Syllart Records through his wife and daughter].

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I commenced the project in Conakry, and met with Balla Onivogui, chef d'orchestre Balla et ses Balladins, Lamine Camara, chef d'orchestre of the Horoya Band, and Sékou "Le Grow" Camara, trumpet player of Bembeya Jazz. Lamine Camara informed me that Métoura Traoré, the former chef d'orchestre of the Horoya Band, was unwell and was in hospital in Dakar. I also learned that Keletigui Traoré, chef d'orchestre Keletigui et ses Tambourinis, was very ill, and I delayed visiting him until his health improved. To gather all interested parties together, and to inform them of the parameters of my sound archive project, a meeting was arranged in the nightclub Club Bembeya with Sékou "Bembeya" Diabaté, Mohammed Kaba, Sékou "Le Grow" Camara, Bangaly "Gros Bois" Traoré, Linke Condé, Lamine Camara, and other musicians attending.

Later, I was heartened to see that La Paillote, the grand venue of Guinean music from the 1960s to 1980s, was still going strong, and that orchestras such as Keletigui et ses Tambourinis performed there every Saturday night! I had some wonderful times there with Abdoul Karim “Chuck Berry” Camara, Papa Kouyaté, Talibé Traoré, Linke Condé and Amadou Thiam, interviewing them and talking about their lives in music. To see them smile so broadly as we listened to recordings of their music blasting out through the big speakers of the venue is a memory I cherish...

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During the era of President Sékou Touré, the Guinean government created some of the finest and largest archives and libraries in West Africa. In 1985, a year after Touré's death, an attempted coup resulted in widespread looting and the ransacking of government offices. The national library was pillaged, its holdings scattered, and the RTG buildings were bombed, which resulted in the Syliphone archive being largely destroyed. Many thought that the complete archive of all Syliphone vinyl recordings would never exist again.

In such a “post-Sékou Touré” climate, my project to recreate the Syliphone catalogue and its (unreleased) studio recordings faced several impediments. After 2 months of liaison with the respective Ministries, I was yet to be granted access to the RTG's sound archives which held the audio reels of tape recorded during Sékou Touré's reign, even though I had the support of the Culture Ministry, the National Library, many of Guinea's renowned musicians, and that of Mme Yayé Haby Barry, the RTG archive directrice. Many weeks passed and the wheels of bureaucracy were moving mighty slowly, if at all, it seemed. Access to the RTG is restricted, and access to its sound archives seldom granted. The RTG buildings are a central point of government broadcasting and are heavily protected, with up to a dozen armed soldiers at its entrance gates supported by a military barracks, Camp Koundara, located some 100 metres adjacent to the buildings.