 |
  |
Etienne Mbappé reinvents himself solo
Second album from the Cameroonian bassist
Paris
05/06/2008 -
Etienne Mbappé's upcoming schedule is as packed as his awesome musical CV. Over the next few months, the Cameroonian bassist is due to perform some forty dates in a dozen different countries, flying back and forth between Norway, Chad, Croatia and Spain with a few stop-offs in France along the way. Mbappé has been putting his own spin on the theory of 'perpetual movement' for over two decades now and he looks in no danger of stopping any time soon. The bass virtuoso served a lengthy musical apprenticeship, working as a sideman for a long list of French and African music stars ranging from Michel Jonasz and Jacques Higelin to Salif Keïta and Touré Kunda. But throughout his time in the backing shadows, Mbappé was quietly musing away about the musical stories he would tell in his own name when the time was right.
It took a while before Mbappé finally felt ready to "go over to the other side", writing and composing his own material, singing as well as playing guitar and forming his own group. Giving up a comfortable situation as backing musician for the much more uncertain future of solo artist was no easy decision. But the trigger finally came one night partway through a tour with Joe Zawinul. Playing at New York's Blue Note, Mbappé suddenly knew this would be his last concert with the world-famous jazz star. The need to throw his time and energy into his own personal project had finally become too strong. However, Mbappé says he has never once regretted the years he spent in the backing shadows, explaining that "When I played behind major French music stars who packed out (big venues) like Le Zénith, I really enjoyed watching how they ran things on stage. I kept a close eye on who did what when and, over the years, I came to store up a lot of information for future use."
Second solo offering
Mbappé's debut album, Misiya, released in 2004, went on to win the Adami "New Talent" award, reassuring the bassist that he had taken the right decision stepping centre stage as a solo act. And his new-found confidence led him to produce a second solo album, Su La Také, even though he admits that "it requires a lot of faith to get your nose back to the grindstone again." Mbappé is renowned for being an excellent live performer and both of his solo albums reflect his on-stage spontaneity and charisma. In concert, he enjoys reworking old songs and breathing new life into these live on stage. The stage, he claims, is also the perfect place to try out new songs before going into the studio. "The studio," he says, "is a completely different world where something you play at a given moment, according to whatever mood you're in at that point, becomes a sort of 'still life' that you can never go back and change later."
Mbappé uses the studio as a "laboratory" where, like the most painstaking of alchemists, he attempts to hit upon just the right dose of spontaneity while working within the constraints of the music industry. "Sometimes," he admits, "I have to juggle around with the structure of a track in order to get straight to the point. I don't want to end up producing a 10-minute single that no-one wants to play on the radio!" Juggling can be a long, hard process and sometimes, he says, the final pieces of the puzzle only fall into place during the very last recording session. "Songs can be a bit temperamental," he quips.
Mbappé's music has been constantly inspired by his travels and his discovery of new instruments that he insists on bringing back from various trips abroad – much to his wife's despair! Since launching himself as a solo act, Mbappé has been free to delve into his cultural history and express his Cameroonian roots. Twenty years ago, playing with his old colleagues from Ultramarine (a group that went on to become a pioneering force on the 'jazz-world' scene), the bassist had already made a bid to put central African culture on the world map.
Mbappé claims that the music he produces today "is in a spirit of continuity with what went before, but it's less jazz, with more in-depth lyrics." At the age of 44, he feels the time has finally come to "take part in the great debate of African ideas" - hence the inclusion of topical songs on his new album such as Aye (Yen’Etomi) about the African debt. "If I've turned out to be a musician today, I owe it to this land," he says proudly, pointing out that at least twice a year he returns to his birthplace in Cameroon (which he left at the age of fourteen).
A whiff of nostalgia
Mbappé admits that he has missed Africa a lot over the years since settling in France with his family. And a thread of nostalgia runs throughout his album, childhood memories weaving in and out of his songs. Su La Také makes reference to his father's native village (on the song Bonendale) and the traditional circle dances young Etienne used to perform with his sisters at the back of their house at the end of the day. Mbappé also cites two stand-out memories in his formative musical years, attending a concert by the legendary Nigerian star Fela and another by the American godfather of soul, James Brown, playing in the pouring rain in a stadium packed to bursting point. Both shows triggered an automatic response in the budding young musician who had just got his hands on the little acoustic guitar the kids used to share around in his local neighbourhood.
A few years later, as a teenager living in France, Mbappé went on to take up bass, playing with a group he formed with his school friends. Intuitively, he says, he knew the sound he wanted to produce on his instrument (a model his father bought him for 300 francs). This "intuition" doubtless came from years of having listened to the virtuoso playing of his bassist compatriots: Jean Dikoto Mandengue (aka "Jeannot Karl"), Vicky Edimo and Aladji Touré, the "founding fathers" who paved the way for the contemporary generation of Cameroonian bass-players such as Mbappé, Bona, Nsangué and Ekwabi. And now history is repeating itself with Etienne Mbappé transformed into a role model for a new generation of up-and-coming musicians from his homeland. However, Mbappé's new-found status does not appear to have affected his enthusiasm when it comes to working with his own music idols - such as the great Ray Charles back in 2004. "It does the soul good to meet the artists who made me dream in my time," the bassist says with touching humility.
Concert dates: Le New Morning (Paris), 5 June 2008, and Le Parc de la Vilette (Paris) 27 July 2008
Bertrand Lavaine
08/12/2006 -
