Black sounds at Paris's wildest cabaret

by Aidan O'Donnell

Article published on the 2009-07-24 Latest update 2009-07-31 20:58 TU

 

Tucked away in a corner of Paris’s Parc de Villette is a small tented venue known as the Cabaret Sauvage. 

Ordinarily the Parc de la Villette is a useful place to walk your dog, find out more about life on a molecular level or examine a sixteenth-century forerunner of the piano.

But since 1 July the Cabaret Sauvage has been home to Black  Summer Festival, which is dedicated to Black music. But what exactly is “Black music”, when it’s at home?

“It’s not a question of colour, it’s really a question of rhythm,” says Victoria Rousse who looks after the programming for the festival. She points to Peruvian outfit Novalima who played in the first week of the festival.

“When you listen to their music, you can feel the African roots,” she says, and goes on to also place the roots of Cuban salsa firmly on the African continent.

Plenty of the festival's acts, however, have come directly from Africa, in the form of Zimbabwe’s Chiwoniso, Cameroon’s Blick Bassy, Côte d’Ivoire’s Victor Démé and Mali’s Cheick Tidiane Seck.

“We haven’t found Black music from Asia, but maybe next year we’ll find it,” she says. But when you’re taking the vast notion of “Black music” as your festival’s organising principle, a little classification goes a long way and Rousse explains that every night of the festival has a theme.

These themes range from two nights of Salsa, oof which was Yuri Buenaventura’s opening gig, to a night dedicated to the Congo (Staff Benda Bilili, Konono N° 1, Kasaï Allstars) and last week’s evening dedicated to women vocalists.

The women in question were Imany, Sally Nyolo  and Calypso Rose.

After her soundcheck, Sally Nyolo told me that she had what she considered a nice place in the evening’s triple bill, sandwiched between the young French singer Imany and the legendary Calypso Rose. It’s generally a good sign when the stars are spending time on the other side of the stage.

“I came a few weeks ago,” says Nyolo, “and I saw a beautiful concert”. Chiwoniso was playing and a lady from Peru [Novelima], it was beautiful.

“It was fantastic and I still remember this concert, this night."

There are still concerts to come from Soha, Aziz Sahmaoui, Popa Chubby and Anthony Joseph. And then the whole business comes to a close under aegis of the funkmeister himself, George Clinton.

Black Summer Festival continues at the Cabaret Sauvage until 3 August.