Queen Rima is a Guinean artist with a ardour for city music and the rhythms of her nation. She was born and raised in Conakry, the place she started dancing at an early age, performing in Guinean venues earlier than making a reputation for herself on the worldwide scene.
Winner of the RFI Découverte Award 2025, Queen Rima is the second Guinean feminine artist to win this award and the third singer from her nation after songwriter Sia Tolno in 2011 and Soul Bang’s in 2016, the king of soul and R&B. Queen Rima’s profession path is that of an formidable and decided artist who has needed to combat to make her voice and her model, dancehall, heard in a music business that’s nonetheless very male-dominated.
Originally of the yr, you acquired the RFI 2025 Découvertes award. How did you’re feeling about this recognition?
As an enormous honour and a supply of nice pleasure. After two finals in 2022 and 2023 with out profitable the prize, profitable it in 2025 is a victory for me, but additionally for all younger individuals in Guinea. It proves that perseverance pays off and that each failure is a lesson that paves the best way for achievement. These moments of failure had been irritating however formative. I realized to work on my voice, my stage presence and my picture. I realised that expertise alone shouldn’t be sufficient: you want self-discipline, a crew and a method.
I invested in my profession as if it had been an actual enterprise, which is why I arrange my very own label, Ouria Music.
I took singing classes, stage teaching, and inventive route. I ended improvising to construction my artwork, and it paid off.
You’re generally known as the ‘Queen of Dancehall’ in Guinea. What does that imply for you as a feminine artist?
Being known as that could be a title that honours me, however it’s additionally a duty. It signifies that I’ve to encourage younger women who dream of entering into dancehall music and present them which you could achieve success whereas remaining genuine {and professional}. You’re already seeing ladies emerge on this style of music and elsewhere who’re doing very effectively in West Africa, significantly in Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia and Sierra Leone.
Why did you select dancehall?
This musical style fits my character: energetic, free and direct. It’s a style that enables me to combine African influences with Caribbean sounds and convey a message about ladies whereas getting the viewers dancing.
Your album Temperature, launched in 2022, offers a measure of your inventive ambition…
Température was a pivotal challenge: I laid the foundations for my musical identification with socially acutely aware lyrics and highly effective rhythms. This album exhibits that I don’t need to be a flash within the pan, however to construct a strong, worldwide profession!
Your tune Guinée won-nömanè celebrates ladies. Why sing for them?
As a result of Guinean ladies are brave, decided and too typically invisible. This tune is a tribute to their energy, their sacrifices and their function within the nation’s improvement.
Lantchou mi yobaï and Life, what’s the context and theme?
Lantchou mi yobaï ‘Break every thing and I’ll pay’ is an expression in Pular, a language spoken in Guinea and in a lot of sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Lantchou mi yobaï’ is alleged to boast and reaffirm one’s buying energy to others. Some individuals, when flirting in nightclubs, proudly say ‘Lantchou mi yobaï’ to the girl they want with a purpose to get what they need as a result of they’ve the facility to acquire or purchase something! This, with out understanding that Self-importance of vanities, all is self-importance right here under!
On this tune, I reveal the dishonourable angle of males who assume they will use cash, materials possessions and meals to have ladies at their beck and name. For its half, Life is a tune about life: life isn’t static, you should all the time imagine in tomorrow.
Your newest manufacturing is the tune Chocolat. What does it inform us?
Chocolat is a celebration of our African identities, our pure magnificence and our pleasure. I take advantage of this phrase to appeal my man and, by him, all males. You already know, in my repertoire, I typically ‘conflict’ with males, so this time I made a decision to amplify my man’s love. All my followers are my ‘Chocolats’ (laughs).
What themes encourage you and the way do you write your lyrics?
I’m impressed by on a regular basis life, the social standing of girls, private experiences and the tales I see round me. I all the time write from a spot of real emotion and I select the sounds with my crew primarily based on the power I need to convey.
You have got toured extensively within the sub-region and in Europe. How did they go?
The excursions had been intense and fantastic. I met very completely different audiences, however they had been all the time heat and welcoming. It gave me confidence and confirmed that my music speaks throughout borders.
What are your prospects and plans?
I’m engaged on a brand new album with worldwide collaborations, extra formidable music movies and one other European tour. My purpose is to advertise Guinean and African music. However first, I’m releasing a single, Badman, on 19 September 2025. This monitor is meant as a type of feminine resistance to male makes an attempt at industrial seduction. I tactfully painting the imaginative and prescient of a progressive girl whose aspirations are centered on initiatives and progress, relegating to the background the fabric items generally used as instruments of seduction.
What message do you need to ship?
Consider in your desires, work arduous and don’t let anybody outline your limits. If I, ‘Queen Rima’, may do it, then so are you able to!
