With Sheriff Janko
After a long break, legendary Gambian reggae star, Demba Conta believes he has finally struck the right chord and is ready to make a headline with his new album coming soon.
Famous for hits such as Monkey Business, Unite the States of Africa and Rule the World, the veteran singer is focused and ready to showcase his musical artistry again.
Starting out his musical career in the early 1970s, Demba Conta first burst onto the musical platform with a local siko group, a traditional music genre popular in bygone days.
Hailing from a non-griot background, it was not an easy road for him at the onset, as he had to hide and sing because his parents were totally opposed to his musical ambitions.
Following years of rising sucess, he went on to drop his first reggae album, Monkey Business. Then came his signature hit album, Unite the States of Africa and then Rule the World, which garnered warm reception from his global audience.
Since then he has been working undergroud and with a vast collection of materials at hand now, he is looking forward to dropping his new album.
“I have been recording for a long time and I’m coming hopefully this year with a new album after the release of my daughter, Iman Conta’s album,” he told Standard Lite in an exclusive interview.
“Right now I have over 200 songs to choose from, but probably I might choose 10 to 12 songs for my next album.”
“To all my fans, let them stay tune. If they like my music before, they will obviously love this upcoming one even more,” he said.
Of his signature album Unite the States of Africa, which is also the title of his hit song, Demba Conta acknowledged that the song resonates with his fans in concert halls across the globe to this day.
But, he said a lot more needed to be done with the six-minute anthem song.
“I would like The Gambia to do something about this song so that the people who love this song can know that the song is from The Gambia. I never recorded a video of this song simply because I don’t want to commercialise it,” he said.
However, he suggested that shooting a video capturing our political figures, showing the image of Kunta Kinteh or historical sites of the country and so forth, and using the tune as a background, would increase its global appeal and sell The Gambia.
With the upcoming album, Demba Conta said he remains hopeful for the future.
