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The Magic System way

New album, Touté Kalé

Paris

15/04/2011 -

Along with the promise of summer comes Touté Kalé, the sixth album by Ivoirian ambiance makers, Magic System. It may not be very original, but it seems set for success in discos and the charts. So what’s their magician’s secret?

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For the last two months, disco dance floors have been filling up to the sound of the new Magic System hit, Ambiance à l’africaine. Yet the track, which opens Touté Kalé, the group’s sixth album, sounds vaguely familiar. Except for Khaled’s touch of raï, the number is an echo of the group’s last hit, Même pas fatigué, which was produced in collaboration with Khaled and sold over 300,000 copies in 2009 when it was released on the compilation Raï’n’b fever. They have reworked the same recipe several times since Premier Gaou, but none can deny that Magic System manage to hit the spot with their fans practically every time.

Magic System potion

Ever since their hit, Momo, taken from their first album Papitou (1997), Magic System have been producing disco hits in a fifteen-year career that has seen them win twelve golden disks and two platinum awards. In a depressed industry, Magic System’s impressive sales are the mark of an unusual rise to fame.

In the space of a few years, this vocal band from Anoumabo, in the Marcory neighbourhood of Abidjan, has turned into a hit factory. One of the rare African groups to escape the “world music” category, Magic System is a regular guest on prime time TV programmes presenting French music.

Asalfo, the group’s spokesman, comments: “It’s a shame that in trendy clubs you can hear Magic System but not other African groups.” He considers that zouglou should look for inspiration in the rise of Cheb Khaled and Mami’s raï. Back in the nineties, the two singers managed to inundate the world with their western-flavoured, modernized raï.

Asalfo goes on: “There are 850 zouglou groups in Côte d’Ivoire, but you hardly ever hear about them here and they never go outside the community. If you want to be a big success, there are no two ways about it: you need to do it the Magic System way. Go global. You need to bring a new sound using a base that people are already familiar with.”

And that’s something that the producers accompanying the Ivorian band know all about. Touté Kalé, for example, contains a bit of everything: a mix of “Afro-western” music, zouglou blended with dance or techno, and of course, some original zouglou.

Unifiers

During the interview, the band defends their decision to make trendy music. Asalfo insists, “We try to get away from the dance floor pigeon hole that people put us into, but a complete break from our style could work against us. We give our fans what they want to hear: joy, sunshine and messages of hope, but there are other tracks to discover on the album”.

In Touté Kalé, the group have also composed several zouglou titles, one of which is the disk’s best track, Souvenir d’Anoumabo, a dancing tribute to their childhood in Côte d’Ivoire. Magic System attempts to open out to other genres too, like Ça va aller, a unifying reggae sound with Tiken Jah Fakoly about the Ivoirian crisis, and a few guitar and vocal tracks, like L’eau va manquer on global warming and Pas si différents about racism.

These are all hot topics both in France and Côte d’Ivoire, but their treatment is anything but controversial, “We adapt to the situation, given the social context in France.It’s a fact that few African artists get listened to as much as we do in France; we’re like messengers for a whole community in the broadest sense, so we try to put across positive messages,” Asalfo says with a smile.

Sensations

The next important event for the group’s fans (currently 92,000 on their Facebook page) is the Nuit Africaine at the Stade de France on 11 June, gathering other African stars for the celebration, like Manu Dibango, Sékouba Bambino, Mokobé, Meiway and Alpha Blondy. For Magic System, who will play with musicians, it’s a chance to get back into a live situation and experience the taste of a big show. “Unlike what a lot of people think, we aren’t a studio or disco group. We perform best with our musicians and we always like making our voices heard. With a microphone, there’s no cheating,” concludes Asalfo. That might also be one of the ingredients of Magic System’s potion – four great voices and a love for the show.