Cameroon Radio Show
Manu Dibango was one of the African artists who I have listening to since I was child as my dad was a huge fan. Unfortunately he passed away due to COVID just over a month ago so this show is a tribute to him. He did a huge amount to bring African music to a global audience with his fusion of Makossa music with reggae, rumba, funk, soul and other styles. RIP Manu Dibango….
The Makossa style blends particularly nicely with reggae music which has resulted in a lot of good reggae and reggae fusion being produced in Cameroon from the 60s and 70s onwards. Check out Babette D’O (Rastawoman) by Pasteur Lappe, Reggae Makossa / Frozen Soul / Tek Time by Manu Dibango for some great examples of this.
As a former French Colony Cameroon has a strong connection to France and many of the great musicians migrated to Paris in the 1980s. A number of those musicians formed a group called L'Equipe Nationale de Makossa, including Ben Decca, Grace Decca, Bill Loko, Ndedi Eyango, Guy Lobe and Dina Bell. The Makossa style fused with musical styles from the French Caribbean such as Zouk, plus synthesisers and more of an 80s pop style as you can hear in Sontanele by Ben Decca & Grace Decca and Nen Lambo by Bill Loko.
I studied ethnomusicology at university and the anthropologist in me couldn’t help playing the The Water Drum recording by the Baka Pygmies! Part of the romance of old-style anthropology is about capturing cultures before they get infiltrated and disrupted by western cultures and influences. This approach is now more or less dismissed as being archaic in modern anthropology, but I do like the approach in the context of capturing music in its pure traditional form before it becomes mixed with other influences and this tune is a great example of that - the Baka Pygmies splash the water as their percussion, and sing in their traditional style, and it’s a joy to listen to.
Album of the Month - Arabica by Tala AM. Andre Marie Tala had a tough start to life, losing both of his parents and going blind by the time he was 16. However, he had a passion for music and made his first guitar using threads of nylon and bamboo and started his first band The Rock Boys which later transformed into Black Tigers in 1967 with the introduction of his friend Sam Fan Thomas. He moved to Paris at 20 and there he collaborated with Manu Dibango. He even coined his own musical style called Tchamassi (check out Get Up Tchamasi on the show to get a feel for it!).
The show was streamed live from my house in Crystal Palace. Having started the Mother of Mankind show during lockdown I still haven’t been in to the studio yet so I am having to learn on the job how to record, live stream and produce radio myself (with plenty of support from the team at Musicbox Radio!).
Full tracklist:
Reggae Makossa - Manu Dibango
Frozen Soul - Manu Dibango
Sontanele - Ben Decca & Grace Decca
Nen Lambo - Bill Loko
Sweet Dole - Andre Marie Tala
Mongele M’am - Eko Roosevelt
Chargrin D’Amour - Moni Bile
Bowa’a Mba Gebe - Eko Roosevelt
Rumba Makossa - Manu Dibango
The Water Drum - Baka Pygmies
Black Gold - Andre Marie Tala
Sugar Lump - Andre Marie Tala
I Know What You Want - Andre Marie Tala
Get Up Tchamasi - Andre Marie Tala
Na Real Sekele Fo Ya - Pasteur Lappe
African Typic - Sam Fan Thomas
Funk Makossa - Manu Dibango
Afrika Afrika - Ekambi Brillant (John Talabot & Pional ‘Lost Scripts’ Rerub)
Lomdieu - Kareyce Fotso
Babette D’O (Rastawoman) - Pasteur Lappe
Tek Time - Manu Dibango
