Fredy Massamba sings free

First solo album

Paris 

14/06/2010 - 

For over ten years, Fredy Massamba, a singer and dancer originally from Congo-Brazzaville, toured with the Tambours de Brazza, Zap Mama and Didier Awadi. For his solo debut, he concocts his own sound on Ethnophony, a masterful synthesis of all of his influences.

RFI Musique: After a career spanning several years travelling the world, Ethnophony is your first solo album, how did you come to produce it?
Fredy Massamba: I’ve been working on it for four years. I started recording at Didier Awadi’s place in Dakar, at the Sankara studio, where I met Fred Hirschy, a “creator of rhythms”. I explained my idea to him. We wired up a microphone and I sang completely spontaneously. I went off on a tour with Awadi and when I got back he played the voices back to me. I re-worked it at my own rhythm and I recorded the chorus and all the percussion instruments on my own. We then sent the sound to one of the greatest mixers in New York, Tom Soares, who works with Erykah Badu. He immediately accepted to do the mixing which is what gives the album its really warm, soul flavour.

The album is really hip-hop with a powerful groove, but at the same there’s a strong connection to Brazzaville and Central Africa.
Zap Mama taught me a lot. Marie Daulne often says that she is Afro-pean: "I come from somewhere, but this is where I live". That’s really important for me – I was born in the Congo, but I’ve been living in Europe for eleven years. I’ve learned a lot of things, and forgotten some things… I’m multicoloured. I’ve sung in Kikongo, the language of southern Congo, in Swahili and Lingala. There’s a lot of percussion, which comes from my experience with the Tambours de Brazza. Then there are tracks with a Pygmy flavour, and that’s obviously linked to my collaboration with Zap Mama and my entourage; the rumba comes from my childhood… And the hip-hop comes from when I was a teenager because at the end of the eighties I was into popping in Brazzaville, Congo… So this album is me as I am today.

As a musician, what has it meant to you to have complete freedom and the chance to make your own music?
At the start of my European career, I accompanied other artists. So there was a risk that I would find myself alone in the studio with all these influences buzzing round me. But because I improvised everything, it was very free. For the lyrics, I tried to keep the same fresh feel and sing about what I am, just as it came. But I had to work hard to get there!

What are the lyrics about on Ethnophony?
I talk a lot about my country, the Congo, and the 1998 war, which was a hard experience for me and forced me into exile. I sing out my anger and frustration, even though I love my country more than anything, and I tell my homeland how much I love it on this record. Despite everything, when I see the young people in Brazzaville, and how creative they are, I truly feel convinced that there is hope. I am Congolese and I always will be. It’s in my blood and in the sound I make.

Fredy Massamba Ethnophony (Skinfana) 2010
Playing live on 20 June in Brussels, 21 June in Paris (Musée de l'immigration), 25 June in Brussels (Festival Couleur Café), 26 June in Libreville (Festival Gabao), 1 July in Kinshasa (Unikin University), 7 July in Brazzaville (CCF) and 8 July in Kinshasa (CCF)

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper