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Meet our Man Crush for the seventh week of the year, Lansana Sheriff.
From the rural skipping through urban to continental, meet a music legend and cultural hero of generations to come. Moving from little to much, Steady Bongo has carried his people like tones in his heart, bringing joy and happiness to his nation’s face and gladness to his people’s heart!
Born in a rural town of Daru in Kailahun District in Eastern Sierra Leone to an ethnic Mandingo father and a Mende mother, Lansana Sheriff better known as Steady Bongo attended the Ahmadiyya Muslim Secondary School at Kissy Dockyard in Freetown where he sat his ‘O’ level Exam.
From an early age, he performed on stage, imitating musicians such as the legendary Big Fayia, Samile, Eric Donaldson, and Prince Nico. He hosted a program called “Variety Time” at the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS). His first album, Ready Before You Married, was released in 1990 and became an instant success not only in Sierra Leone, but in neighbouring countries as well. His second album Kormot Bi En Me, released in 1996, received the Best Album Award and had record-breaking sales. The album was the first of Steady Bongo’s records to be released on CD in the United States. In 1998, he released Welcome to Democracy Na Salone and Born For Suffer in 1999. He’s one of the first musicians that popularised Sierra Leone music to the outside world.
Steady Bongo is considered as someone that has spent his money and time in promoting not only himself but young artists like Big Joe, Papa Minkailu and others as well as the group known as Steady Bongo and the Cultural Heroes.
For the past decade or more, musicians such as Steady Bongo have provided solace to millions of poor – young as well as old people – lost in the mist of hopelesness, joblessness, abject poverty and political impunity.
Steady Bongo for his efforts, contribution and success was honoured by the late President, Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabba with the Order of the Rokel Award and he has earned many other awards in and out of Sierra Leone.
