My name is Seny Touré and I was born and raised in Conakry, from an early age on, I've always had a heart for the music, without being aware of it. Wherever music was been played, I wanted to go, but I was too young, I think I was about 4 years old...
One day, some griots were in town and without telling my mother, I followed them to the place where the party would be. The family panicked, especially my mother and grandmother did. The party was so far away that I had to stay there, and I slept on the mat.
When I was 11 or 12 years old, every Conakry neighbourhood had its ballet troupe. The people from the neighbourhood came and looked for me and my twin brother Lansana to come and play in the ballet troupe of the district. It was fun for us; we enjoyed ourselves making music. Playing music was the only thing on our minds at that time.
From that moment on I took a lot of risks in order to go to and look at the rehearsals of the national ballet. It was not easy to get in and see the rehearsals. Sometimes it was not possible to enter, so I stayed at the doorstep to listen to the music. I was always looking for ways to get in. In those days the djembes were always placed next to the fire to get a better sound, so I went looking for dead wood, trying to do the musicians a favour so that they might accept me and let me watch them.In that way I had a lot of teachers who didn't know me as being one of their pupils.
Later on I left my family and lived with my friends in Gbessia port, where we spend a lot of time together. I played the djembe in a lot of ballets before I finally joined the national ballet company "Les Ballets Africains" and I kept on playing the accompanying djembé for years before I became a soloist. At the same time, I became obsessed by painting, which is another way to express myself.
Nowadays, I am still in touch with the friends I made in that period of my life and it is with them I made my first CD "Dunuya Mukolonma" meaning "In life you never know.."
Who would have thought that those little kids from the hood would reunite one day in the United States each with his own story.
Meanwhile, I settled in Belgium and I still think a lot at that time in Gbessia. There we played together, we amused ourselves and became friends. That is what is try to pass on in my lessons here, because I know you can make many friends by this instrument...
and that is also why the name of my group is "Wonbere", which means : let's have fun !
