Album review

Pierre Akendengué

Ekunda-Sah!

Paris 

25/03/2005 - 

Pierre Akendengué, the renowned poet-aesthete and activist-singer, belongs to that pioneering generation of singers and musicians who emerged from French-speaking Africa in the 70s. Currently back in the spotlight with his new album, Ekunda-Sah!, Akendengue continues to draw inspiration from the culture and music traditions of Gabon, where he returned to live twenty years ago now.

Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, 11 March 2005. A moment of music history is made when a Gabonese singer climbs into a Parisian taxi and is instantly recognised by the Cameroonian driver behind the wheel. "Wow! You're Pierre Akendengué!" he cries, swivelling round in his seat, "You don't know how happy I am to have you in my cab! When I was a student I listened to your music non-stop. I never imagined I'd actually get to meet you one day and, even better, get to drive you in my cab. When you went back to Gabon we were all really worried about you, you know. We'd heard the government didn't like you. And we were sad to lose someone who'd always spoken out in favour of the oppressed. Then we found out you'd been appointed as a government adviser and we felt really let down! We thought you'd sold out and gone over to the other side!"

Pierre Akendengué had barely touched down on French soil before the questions and accusations began. The singer, who had made a special trip to France to promote his new album Ekunda-Sah!, found himself brought face to face with his past. Before even arriving at his record label HQ, Akendengue was forced to measure the consequences of the personal and professional decisions he had made two decades ago - and realise that the years had not completely wiped out his fans' feelings of bewilderment and incomprehension!

Akendengué's relationship with France began in the mid-60s when he left his native Gabon to follow a course of treatment for an eye disease in a Paris hospital. He ended up staying on in the French capital and honing his vocal skills at the famous "Petit Conservatoire" music institute run by the legendary Mireille. Over the next few years, Akendengue established himself as one of the first artists from French-speaking Africa to make a name for himself in France. Encouraged and supported by Pierre Barouh (the man responsible for launching the careers of many leading French artists such as Jacques Higelin and Brigitte Fontaine), Akendengué released his debut album, Nandipo, in 1974. Two years later, he carried off the "Prix de la jeune chanson française" at Midem with his next album Africa Obota.

Akendengué went on to become enormously popular, building a significant fanbase amongst the French-speaking African community in France. His fans loved him not just for his music, but because he acted as an unofficial spokesperson for their community and defended social and racial ideals. Akendengue believed that "an artist should be a vehicle for protest in society, because if he fails to act society runs the risk of becoming hidebound and ossified." "During my time in France," Akendengue insists, "I did my own little bit towards promoting a different image of Africa. I tried to show people that another kind of Africa existed, an Africa that went beyond waste and corruption, economic pillage, natural catastrophes and fratricidal wars. And I tried to do this through art – because art is basically about trying to create something of beauty; it's an attempt to transcribe an abstract idea of beauty, justice and equality in the hope that this will filter through into action! I tried to put across a privileged image of the happiness and sufferings of human beings in general, and Africans in particular. And I think, at the end of the day, I made a certain contribution towards the rehabilitation of Africa's image, showing the continent in a more positive light."

The End of Exile

The turning point in Pierre Akendengué's career came in 1984 when he appeared on a French television programme and found himself face to face with a particularly confrontational journalist. "OK, so you sing about Africa. That's great!" declared the journalist in question, "but what Africa are you singing about exactly given that you've lived in Europe for the last twenty years and Africa hasn't stopped evolving in your absence?" Akendengue admits this line of enquiry led to a sort of personal epiphany in his life when he realised he must be completely out of touch with his compatriots. "I'd never made a deliberate choice to live in exile," Akendengue says today, "And that question acted as a much-needed catalyst in my life, making me take the plunge and go back home!"

Many people must have wondered exactly what Akendengué intended to do when he got back to Gabon, given that his songs were still censored there. But, in a dramatic reversal of fortune, the singer ended up appointed as a government adviser shortly after his prodigal return. This left many Akendengue fans with a bitter taste in their mouths, fretting that their erstwhile spokesperson had finally sold out. Akendengue denies the charge, however, claiming that "becoming a government adviser allowed me to get right to the heart of what was most important to me, allowing me to steep myself in the roots of the culture that has inspired the handful of songs I've made in my career."

Akendengue’s answer to those who continued to believe that he would have been more use to his country if he had stayed in France? His 1993 album Lambarena on which he brought together the classical compositions of Bach and the traditional music of Gabon. This, Akendengué insists, was an album he could never have made without having returned to his homeland first. Living back amongst his compatriots – "and not in any way on a level above them!" – Akendengué felt that his responsibility as an artist towards society had actually increased as a result of going back home. His return to Gabon was not without a certain amount of personal sacrifice, either. Given the country's lack of recording facilities and the financial investment necessary to make an album, Akendengue's career suffered a major slowdown. His last two albums each took over four years, not due to any lack of artistic inspiration, but to a simple question of funding! After all, Pierre Akendengué is not a man to embark upon a musical project without being sure of directing it exactly as he wishes.

A committed perfectionist, renowned for choosing every word and image with care, Akendengué has just put the finishing touch to Ekunda-Sah!, his fourteenth album to date. This new opus essentially revolves around three different dimensions: a cultural dimension which inspired the title track (referring to a traditional dance), a social dimension expressed on songs such as La pauvreté (Poverty) and the singer's quest for spirituality. As Akendengué points out, "Africans are believers in the widest possible sense of the word!" As his wont, Akendengue has drawn on traditional Gabonese music in the making of his new album, but retained certain ties to the Western styles he came into contact with during his period of 'exile.' In short, on Ekunda-Sah!, Akendengue tries to put his own personal spin on tradition, hoping that he will be appreciated on the international music scene "as well as at home on the local village square!"

Meanwhile, Akendengué continues his work as cultural adviser to a government that has been heavily criticised from several quarters. The singer insists that he remains true to the principles he has upheld all his life, however. "Art should always primarily be an instrument of liberation," he declares, "An artist should never speak simply for the sake of speaking and he should never lie about things he knows. I think the handful of songs I've made in my career – which have been appreciated by certain music fans over the years – have never waived from that principle. Because, in the silence of his own heart, the artist always vows he’ll be faithful to himself!"

Pierre Akendengué Ekunda-Sah! (Taxi Records/Codaex) 2005
In concert at Le Bataclan in Paris on 4 April 2005

Bertrand  Lavaine