 |
  |
Forgotten African music gems
African classics re-released
Paris
29/08/2008 -
Ah, the crackling grooves of old singles and dusty LPs! A fascinating slice of African music history is engraved in the vinyl of those vintage 33 and 45rpms - all too often pressed in limited editions and thus eagerly sought after as collector's items today! Fortunately for music fans, a number of historic African music gems have now been re-released in CD format. And this year alone, albums such as Clash mandingue, Señor eclectico and Rumba rock have given us the chance to (re)discover classics recorded several decades ago now by seminal African artists such as Manfila Kante and Sorry Bamba, Amadou Balake and the founding fathers of Congolese rumba.
Let us take you by the hand and spin you back through the mists of time to Abidjan on the Ivory Coast in the late 1960s. The Ivorian metropolis was not yet recognised as the throbbing heart of the music industry in this part of Africa, but Abidjan was already fulfilling its role as a vital cultural hub and music crossroads. It was in Abidjan that the Guinean guitarist Manfila Kante and the Malian flute and trumpet virtuoso Sorry Bamba first hooked up together in the late 1960s. True, the pair's working partnership was only temporary and it remains a little-known blip in their respective careers before they each made an individual name for themselves, Manfila Kante working with Salif Keïta (first with Les Ambassadeurs and then as arranger on the Malian superstar's solo albums), Sorry Bamba becoming the director of the Orchestra in his hometown, Mopti. But the music the pair made together in Abidjan in the late 1960s gives a fascinating glimpse into the sounds of the day.
Interestingly enough, while Manfila Kante and Sorry Bamba might have been expected to play the Manding culture card (both of them being brilliant representatives of this tradition), the pair took everyone by surprise, striking off in a completely different direction on the 23 tracks that appear on the Clash mandingue compilation. Originally recorded in 1968, these 23 dance-oriented tracks are for the most part inspired by Latino rhythms, reminding us just how extensively Cuban music (in all its forms) had taken hold in Africa. The other unusual feature that will immediately strike anyone listening to Clash mandingue is the format. Instead of leaving recording tapes running in the studio without even looking at the clock (as so many other African groups did around the same period), the exiled duo were amazingly concise. If you're ever lucky enough to get your hands on a Manfila Kante and Sorry Bamba single, released on the Djima label - whose rarity means they fetch astronomical prices on the collector's market today - you will find two tracks crammed onto each side of the 45rpm. And the truly astounding thing is that often neither side of the single exceeded two minutes!
Brute force
Amadou Balake, another veteran African music star from Burkina Faso, also passed through Abidjan at the beginning of his career before heading off to Guinea to join the Horoya Band (one of the leading orchestras in Conakry). But Balake soon found himself caught up in the inter-African slanging match between the Guinean president Sékou Touré and his Burkina Faso counterpart, Maurice Yaméogo. The presidential pair locked horns in a veritable war of words, exchanging insults on a regular basis as they attacked each other's diametrically opposed ideologies. Given this heated political context, Balake eventually chose to return to his homeland and launched a solo career in Ouagadougou, performing with various backing bands over the years.
More than half of the songs on the CD compilation Señor eclectico are actually taken from recording sessions Balake made on his return to Burkina Faso for the Club Voltaïque du Disque label. Other tracks featured on Señor eclectico were made in a studio in Ghana and are taken from the 1976 album Traoré Amadou dit Balaké et ses Dieux and these tend to revolve around the standard sound of the times. However, other tracks, recorded with more basic means like a simple tape recorder, possess a certain brute force which more than compensates for any technical shortcomings. And Balake truly comes into his own when traditional Manding sounds fade into the background and let his vibrant groove sound, heavily influenced by Nigerian Afrobeat, power to the fore.
The second part of Señor eclectico comes from the back catalogue of Sacodis, a label run by the Nigerian director Aboudou Lassissi with whom Balake had a close working relationship at the time. Signed to Sacodis, Balake recorded two albums in Lagos, then another in New York. It was in the course of this brief American interlude in his career that he recorded his anti-marijuana classic Yamba with its explicit lyrics: "Listen up, young people of Africa/ What we call yamba – marijuana in the true sense of the word – / Try and give up the stuff (…)/ Sent into Africa by Satan to destroy any hope of progress." Yamba, one of the best-known songs in Balake's repertoire, also marked a musical turning-point in the singer's career, signalling the moment when he became an advocate of 'African salsa' - a sound he has continued to promote with the group Africando (whose ranks he joined in 2001).
Meanwhile, another remarkable collection, African Pearls, has been mining the rich vein of oft-forgotten classics made by African music veterans. Rumba Rock, the latest double-CD release in the series, shines the spotlight on a particularly exciting Congolese music trend that emerged in the 1970s. Rumba gave electric guitarists the chance to let their hair down and free themselves from all restraints - particularly during the fast section of songs known as "sébène" - and gave birth to a new generation of African music stars.
Alongside historic rumba lynchpins such as Franco, Docteur Nico and Tabu Ley Rochereau, Rumba Rock's extremely thorough selection also includes rumba artists best-known for a more recent repertoire such as Papa Wemba with his 1978 version of Zonga Zonga (recorded a year after he formed his famous group Viva la Musica). Wemba's old group Zaïko Langa Langa, still going strong after countless changes of line-up, also feature on Rumba Rock with their 1980 hit Fièvre Mondo as do Nyboma Mwan and Loko Massengo, the future lead singers of Kekele, who were respectively working at the time with the Orchestre Lipua Lipua and Trio Madjesi. Last, but very much not least, Rumba Rock also namechecks Manu Dibango, who followed Joseph Kabasele's African Jazz to the Congo in 1961, then later returned to work as a musician and arranger for Franklin Boukaka.
Boukaka, a famously outspoken singer from Brazzaville, raised his voice in protest in 1970 on his haunting violin-backed ballad Bûcheron. "Africa, where is your independence?" he asked, (…)"Where is your freedom? A number of men I voted for have been consumed by the bulimia of power and fast cars. But when it's time to count the votes, I'll be important to them once again." Boukaka looked to have a promising international career ahead of him thanks to the success of the album on which Bûcheron appeared. But in the end his outspokenness cost him his life. After a failed coup in Congo Brazza in 1972, the singer was executed (without being tried in any official court) by an army firing squad at the tragically young age of 32. And it is fitting that Rumba Rock should also commemorate this, one of the most painful episodes in African music history.
Kante Manfila, Sorry Bamba Clash mandingue (Oriki Music/Discograph) 2008
Amadou Balake Señor eclectico (Oriki Music/Discograph) 2008
Congo 70 Rumba rock (Syllart/Discograph) 2008
Bertrand Lavaine
Translation : Julie Street
