Sery Simplice

Simplice learned guitar as a child, moving to Abidjan in 1966. He joined up with Pierre Amedee, and the two tried to blend rumba music with folklore. Later, in the mid-'70s, he and Ernesto Djedje created the ziglibithy style, which was one of the first natively developed Ivorian idioms to have an impact. In 1977, Simplice formed his own band, Les Freres Djatys, and experimented with fusions based on the gbegbe dance rhythm, following this vein for the vast majority of the rest of his career. ~ Steve Huey