Naby Eco Camara
VOICE
Naby Eco Camara
Guinea/Italy
Naby Eco Camara is a Griot musician.
He was born in one of the most known Griot artistic family of Guinea. He started playing the balafon at the age of seven. When he was thirteen he entered in the musical group, the “Kouyate Kounda”, as balafonist soloist and singer. Later he joined a second group, the “Camara Kounda”.
In 1999 he moved to Dakar, in Senegal, and he started collaborating with several ballet companies. He became the coordinator of the group “Ballets Mansour Gueye -Epopea de Mandeng” and during this period he toured in his motherland, Guinea, visiting the villages and the cities and researching on the ancestral rhythms of balafon.
He’s now living in Italy where he collaborates with several African musical groups and he teaches balafon, bolon, drums and chant in different cities in the middle and in the north of Italy.
He took part in several workshops for children in collaboration with different associations and since 1999 he’s the artistic director of “Les Amis d’Afrique”, the ensemble he funded together with Senegalese, Burkinabé and Guinean artists performing at many international festivals.
In 2011 he collaborated to a musical project with Pietro Toniolo, a famous Italian jazz musician and in 2014 he debuted in the show of Ludovico Einaudi “ Piano Africain”, together with other balafon, marimba and piano musicians.
In 2012 he published his first album in Guinea: “Aventure Mettina”. He is the artistic director of the maison d’artiste in Sangoya, a densely populated neighborhood in Conakry, Guinea, where the youngest could learn the art of music.
He also directs the Naby Eco trio Africa, combining balafon melodies with the one of Kora and djembe.
Since 2016 he started collaborating with Mare Culturale Urbano and in 2017 he published the book edited by Paolo Mostromo L’aventure est dure: ten stories through which he tells his personal experiences, between life and music.
