RFI Musique - - Cameroon: land of musical contrasts

Cameroon: land of musical contrasts

Makossa and bikutsi

Paris

25/03/2010 -

Home to Manu Dibango and many other renowned international artists, Cameroon boasts a high musical profile today. Indeed, the era of independence largely coincided with the arrival of makossa and modern bikutsi, the two pillars of the country’s musical identity.

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But perhaps this was more than simple coincidence, and rather a consequence of the huge social changes the country was undergoing at the time. As Cameroon became an autonomous republic – the final step in the decolonisation process before independence – a modern musical language was taking shape in the bars of the coastal city of Douala.

The birth of mokassa is often dated to 1958, since the term crops up around this time in the work of Emmanuel Nelle Eyoum. This 24-year-old musician already had a solid musical background. Early on he was playing assiko, a traditional rhythm modernised and popularised by the guitarist Jean Bikoko Aladin. He toured with the king of Congolese rumba, Wendo Kolosoy, and even recorded a 78 rpm record for the celebrated Ngoma label in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). Returning to his own country, he worked on various projects with the founders of makossa, including Guillaume Mouelle, Epée Mbende Richard and Manfred Ebanda, who wrote the classic Ami oh (a hit for Bebe Manga in 1981 and the duo African Connexion in 2004). Later, Nelle Eyoum would found Los Calvinos, an iconic group for an entire generation of Cameroonians.

The influence of the Ghanaian highlife style is evident in early makossa. Douala, a veritable cultural crossroads and meeting point between West and Central Africa, played its role as a catalyser. Booming economic development probably enhanced the effect, attracting ever greater numbers of people to the city and boosting the number of entertainment venues.

The record industry was in its infancy: recording was done in the studios at Radio Douala, which had very basic equipment. The music catered to cabarets and the bands who played there, the members of which were not all great technicians. The approach was “not as mathematical as nowadays,” notes Cameroonian singer Gino Sitson. The era was about a simpler sound, with more emphasis on melody.

It was during this period that Eboa Lotin really made his mark. Of all the pioneers of makossa, this pastor’s son is one of the few artists whose work has fully become part of the collective memory, even beyond national borders. Already in 1970, at a historic concert at the Olympia in Paris, the Congolese Tabu Ley Rochereau was singing his songs, signalling Eboa Lotin’s growing reputation outside Cameroon. In 2008, on his album Su La Také, the internationally renowned Cameroonian bass player Etienne Mbappé paid homage to his compatriot with a cover of Lotin’s first hit Mulema Mwam, originally released in 1962.

Bikutsi

Another musical style came into its own around the time that Cameroon declared independence. Bikutsi is a dance music that puts the emphasis squarely on rhythm and an upbeat tempo. The style is solidly anchored in the Cameroon countryside and in ancestral traditions.

It originally came from the Beti people in the central and southern regions of the country. Anne-Marie Nzié, aka "the mother of bikutsi", was another of those who went to the Belgian Congo to kick off her recording career, in 1954, accompanying herself on the steel guitar which her brother Cromwell, a popular singer, had taught her to play. Balafon groups were getting together in Yaoundé, although electric instruments would soon be threatening their existence. But Messi Martin, leader of Los Camaroes, came up with the inspired idea of transposing the bikutsi style to the electric guitar. His innovation not only saved bikutsi from terminal decline, it even gave it a second wind, offering it a contemporary flavour without compromising the basic style.

Manu Dibango had also spent time in Leopoldville, following band leader Joseph Kabasele. But he was determined to make his musical mark on his country and moved back to Cameroon in January 1963. With the help of a few Congolese musicians, he opened a club in Douala called the Tam Tam, although it only lasted a few months. Time enough, though, for the saxophonist to compose Soir au village (evening in the village), which was re-recorded in 1974 and remains only second to Soul Makossa as one of the greatest hits of his career.