The government also set up the Syliphone label to record the ensuing music and thus preserve and enhance the culture of the new nation.
The group was named after their leader trumpet player Balla Onivogui, who was born in 1938 in Macenta, a small town in south-east Guinea and was a student at a conservatory in Senegal before being recruited to play in the Guinea independence celebrations in 1959.
Les Balladins made a number of recordings for the state-owned Syliphone label, which was founded in 1968.
In 1970 Balla had a falling-out with some government officials and was briefly replaced as leader by his friend and trombone player Pivi Moriba, to be restored following the intervention of president Sékou Touré himself.
[3] Guinea suffered a series of economic crises in the 1970s and in 1983 the national orchestras were all established as private concerns.