BENI SOUND SYSTEM, the signature sound of Guinea's biggest concerts

First, yesterday's concert

Petit Sory Stadium in Nongo, Saturday, November 7, 2026. AK — Alpha Keita — performs his “People's Concert”, presented by Street Brothers. The sound had been entrusted to Benedi: the artist's manager had announced it at the November 2 press conference, with a clear demand — “something similar to the Biennale, or even better.”

The next day, the artist publicly saluted the company, and its boss published the backstage story in images: the crowd around a circular stage, the consoles deep in the night, BENI SOUND SYSTEM's technicians at work. What you see is less a concert than a demonstration: this is the level Guinea can now play at, on home ground.

Equipment as a signature

In the photos, everything speaks of investment: large digital mixing consoles, multi-screen video stations, stage structures, screens, flight cases branded with the company's name, crews in high-visibility vests coordinating the control room by walkie-talkie. A fleet designed for stadiums, not for compromise.

The investment is nothing new. Back in February 2013, Mohamed Ibn Abdallah Oularé was presenting a batch of high-end sound equipment bought for 10,000 euros — a serious sum, at the time, for a Guinean company. What followed confirmed the method: invest, and invest again. A Guinean artist said last October that, to find that level of sound and light, you once had to travel as far as Senegal. Today, it happens in Conakry.

From the neighbourhoods to the top

The adventure took shape in 1998, in Guéckédou, where he founded Benedi Records. Those who saw him start out tell of a young basketball player who was already organising promotional parties in the neighbourhoods — the energy of the court, transposed into party nights. From that school of the field grew a complete company: music production, artist management, communications, events.

The label raised artists — Singleton passed through, Baba Samba was revealed there, and the “Papa” video by King Abdoulaye passed 50 million views on his channel. In 2020, the company opened its own studio, Mongole Studio. The honours followed: best cultural operator at the Guinea Music Awards 2014, best events and live-show company at the Guinea Best Company Awards 2021, promoter of the year at the Victoires de la Musique Guinéenne 2022. In Dakar, CICES gave him an award of recognition for the Guinea International Fair, which he initiated.

The mark he leaves

There is what he builds for himself, and what he passes on. In 2024, with Degg J Force 3, he gave a complete recording studio to singer Siland Kuti — “to give back to those who helped us”. Around his control rooms, generations of young technicians learn the trade: in the comments under his posts, one phrase keeps coming back like a nickname — “Benedi is a school”.

And the story keeps being written large: this autumn, his XXL Energy Tour crosses eight Guinean cities with Sobragui. On November 29, he crosses one more border: his first international festival, Monrovia Fest, at the S.K.D Stadium in Monrovia, Liberia, with Rudeboy, formerly half of P-Square, announced on the bill.

“My ambition is to help raise the Guinean events sector to international standards,” he wrote this Sunday, thanking the organisers and his teams. After nearly thirty years equipping his country's shows, the man from the neighbourhoods has become the reference — and he keeps on investing. Entrepreneurs like him show the way: when the sound is up to the task, a whole country hears itself bigger.

Photo gallery — AK's concert at Petit Sory Stadium, the Benedi night

AK's concert at Petit Sory Stadium, seen from behind the scenes with BENI SOUND SYSTEM: the crowd, the circular stage and the crews at work, on Saturday, November 7, 2026.

Photos: Benedi Records — AK's concert, Petit Sory Stadium, Nongo, November 7, 2026. © Benedi Records