Omar Pene is a singer from Dakar, Senegal and the lead voice associated with the Senegalese band Super Diamono. Born in 1955 in Dakar, he grows up in the working-class neighbourhood of Derkle.

Super Diamono

He joins Super Diamono in the mid-1970s, around 1975 to 1976, after being recruited by Bailo Diagne, the group’s first bass player and a founding member. He becomes one of the band’s most established figures and remains closely identified with it even when performing as a solo artist, using what is left of Super Diamono as a backing band. The group is one of the longest-running popular bands in Senegal.

Style and role in Senegalese music

Omar Pene is known as a socially engaged singer rather than a performer of praise songs. His repertoire focuses on conscious, sensitive material. With his bandmates, including Bassirou Diagne, Bob Sene, Aziz Seck, Lapa Diagne, Adama Faye and Abdou Mbacke, and later Ismael Lo, he helps shape contemporary Senegalese music.

Super Diamono develops a progressive, bluesy, funky and soulful local fusion that appeals to audiences in Dakar, particularly in contrast to the more frenetic mbalax style associated with Super Etoile. Pene and Youssou Ndour maintain a long-running artistic rivalry, and both work with mbalax, though in different ways.

Recording career

He releases dozens of hit songs across more than thirty albums and cassettes. Over time he establishes a solo path while remaining strongly linked to Super Diamono.