The Cissé family of Sollou are geseré — genealogists and praise singers of noble families. (The geseré are not to be confused with the diarré, travelling bards and popular entertainers.)
Abdoulaye Cissé was born in 1929, in St. Louis, Senegal, to Koly Gagni Cissé and Bonco Fousseinou Dioumassy. In 1935, Koly Gagni Cissé brought his family back to Sollou, where Abdoulaye grew up surrounded by his large paternal family. Unlike most geseré, Koly Gagni Cissé did not perform or play the gambaré, and Abdoulaye did not grow up learning his musical craft from his father and uncles. Entirely self-taught, by his early twenties he had developed a unique style, playing taut short melodies to accompany his strong singing voice.
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| Abdoulaye Koli Cissé |
He built his reputation performing historical epics narrating the exploits of the great tounka xooré — the free-born noble warriors of the Guidimakha — singing the stories of men like Bakary Makha, the 19th-century hero who defended the villagers of the Guidimakha against beydane razzia (cattle raids). By the early 1950s, Abdoulaye was travelling throughout the region, building his network of patrons and a name for himself. And by the time Radio Mauritanie opened its Nouakchott studios in May of 1961 — before Mauritanian independence the station had broadcast from St. Louis, Senegal — his reputation was well enough established that he was one of the first Soninké artists invited to perform on national radio. These radio performances are the only high-fidelity recordings that exist of Abdoulaye Cissé; he made only one trip to the Nouakchott studios.
Starting in the mid-1960s, Abdoulaye began to travel throughout the Soninké world, cultivating an ever-widening network of patrons. He worked his way through the villages of the Soninké heartlands of Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and the Gambia; made two trips to France; travelled to all three Guineas — the Republic of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea — and to the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). He performed for intimate gatherings, most often alone, accompanying himself on his unamplified gambaré. After a few months on the road, he would always return to Sollou — to his fifteen children (seven boys, eight girls) and to the steady stream of young geseré who travelled from Mali and Senegal to learn from him.
Abdoulaye Cissé stopped performing in 1986. His final performance was a cassette recording made in his compound in Sollou, in front of four people, with his son Ousseynou working the record and pause buttons on the Ssanyu cassette deck. The recording was made for his childhood friend Kandé Sandé. He never again picked up his gambaré, devoting the rest of his life to his spiritual responsibilities as the muezzin of the mosque he had built, in 1984, next to his house. Abdoulaye Cissé passed away in Sollou on 9 November 2010.
Despite hundreds of his performances having been recorded throughout his career, cassettes of Abdoulaye Koly Cissé are frustratingly difficult to find. Here is a selection of the best recordings I have found, which includes two of the songs he recorded at Radio Mauritanie and two cassettes he recorded for patrons. His unique style is like nothing else I have heard in Soninké music. Unlike the more renown Ganda Fadiga and Baba Koné, who recite historical epics to the accompaniment of several lutes and guitars, Abdoulaye Cissé intersperses his recitation with passionate singing and virtuosic gambaré playing.
Although all of Abdoulaye's sons play the gambaré, Moussa and Diadié Cissé are the only two who have established their reputations throughout the Soninké musical diaspora. Moussa was born in 1959 and Diadié in 1960; according to their siblings, they grew up "like twins," inseparable and sharing everything from clothes to ambitions. Like their father before them, they were self-taught, starting on one-string lutes and working their way up to the four-string gambaré. In the mid-1970s the brothers began performing in neighbouring villages, and over the next twenty years they would travel throughout the Guidimakha and the Senegalese and Malian Soninké heartlands. By the early 1990s their reputation was well enough established for them to be invited to perform for the Soninké diaspora in France.
The support of the guitarist Goudia Mandiou Kouyaté, from the village of Diaguily in the Guidimakha, helped the brothers make the most of their first trip to Paris. (Goudia Mandiou is a founding member, with Diaby Doua, Harouna Sidibé, and Mamadou Bathily, of the group Soninkara — one of the first to use electric guitars and keyboards in modern arrangements of Soninké songs.) He introduced the brothers to two key figures of the Paris Soninké music scene: the Malian producer Gaye Mody Camara and the synth genius Jean-Philippe Rykiel. Camara signed them to a production contract and christened them "les Frères Cissé". Over the next twenty years he would release eight Frères Cissé titles on Camara Productions, selling them out of his crammed cassette shop on rue Marcadet in Paris and his shop in the Dabanani market in Bamako. Several of these cassettes featured the synth stylings of Rykiel — to this listener's ears, some of the most interesting recordings of West African griotism.
These recordings further spread the Frères Cissé sound throughout the Soninké diaspora, leading to invitations to perform in Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Frères Cissé continue to perform, travelling between Nouakchott, Paris, and Dakar — and, as their father before them, they return to Sollou at the end of every trip, living in the shadow of his mosque.
This piece is based on interviews with Ousseynou, Moussa, Abdoulaye Diadié, and Adama Cissé. A special thank you to Yacouba Tandia for his enthusiasm and help.
The picture of Camara Production's shop on Rue Marcadet was taken from the internet, thank you to the original poster. This picture elicits strong memories from the early 2000s, of standing shoulder to shoulder in the cramped store trying to get Camara's attention while he juggled two phone calls and a half dozen customers talking to him.
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